We’re working very hard with the new version of Camelonta CMS, codename Calypso (Read our first blog post about the new version here). The new version will have a lot of new cool features, one of these features is the completely rewritten media library. This is where you as a site owner / publisher can store images, documents, videos and other types of files. The new media library gives us the ability to store files more or less everywhere, not only on the actual server. So you’re no longer restricted to just use images (or other files) from just one data source, you can work with documents from several sources.
The new media library is built using the VPP framework (Virtual Path Providers) which is part of ASP.Net. VPP gives us the ability to programmatically serve files from a virtual file system.
In the image below we have Camelonta CMS configured with several different providers. The menu that folds out allows the user to browse the files located in the different providers. First is the standard media library (files stored on the server and unique for the current site), then a shared library (also stored on the server but used by all sites on the installation) and last Dropbox and Sharepoint.
We’re already planning to add new providers so you can access your files on other web services, if you have any idea for a new provider please let us know by leaving a comment below. Also if you’re a developer you can easily build your own library provider so you can integrate whatever service you’d like into Camelonta CMS.
In our work to make the media library better and more flexible we’ve also rewritten our asset chooser. The asset chooser is a control that allows you to select a file or folder to be used in your web site. The problem with the asset chooser we have in version 5.3 (our current version of Camelonta CMS) is that when you have a lots of files and folders it was a bit difficult to get a good overview and find the file you were looking for. So in the new version we decided to make the asset chooser open up in a new window which gives you a much better overview. Here you can also change the provider and browse for files in for example a Dropbox folder. To use any of the files on your web page you simply click on the file you to select it.
The asset chooser automatically filters the content based on what you want to do. This means that if you’re going to insert an image you’ll only see all the images and no other files. If you want to select a folder you will only see folders in the view.
You can also switch between ‘Gallery View’ and ‘List View’. The gallery view is perfect if you want to get a better look at the images in the current folder because it will give you a bigger thumbnail. If you have a big archive of images but you know the file name of the image it may be easier to use the ‘List View’ because you get a more compact view of all the files and a smaller thumbnail.
And of course you can browse all folders in all of the providers you have directly in the asset chooser.
Examples of different Providers
Dropbox Provider
Dropbox is a great service that works as your own personal hard drive in the cloud. All the files you put in your Dropbox automatically syncs to all your devices, computers, smartphones and now also Camelonta CMS. It’s also easy to share one or more folders with your friends and colleagues.
Once you have the Dropbox provider activated in Camelonta CMS you can browse your files and folders, upload new files, create folders, delete files, rename files / folders. And of course if you upload files to your Dropbox in any other way than using Camelonta CMS you immediately see the new files in the media library.
Sharepoint Provider
Sharepoint have become a very popular intranet application and is a great way to store documents for both large and small organisations. However it does not offer any good web CMS capabilities, at least not any that won't cost you a fortune. If you use Camelonta CMS with our Sharepoint provider you can link to files on your Sharepoint installation in a completely transparent way. You can also retrieve files/images via Camelontas standard API and make file lists or image galleries just as you would if the files where stored locally on your Camelonta CMS installation.
Final words
As you can see it’s really easy to integrate and work with different data sources in the upcoming version of Camelonta CMS. This will give you a greater flexibility for how to work with files on both intranets and public web sites.
In upcoming blog posts we’ll describe more in detail how developers and site owners can take advantage of existing media library providers for Camelonta CMS and also how developers can build their own implementation of a media library provider.
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