Case Study: Digital Asset Management in Drupal

GT Drupal Users Group (GTDUG) - 2013 - Eric Sembrat

Digital Asset Management Photo Resource Management in Drupal

A Case Study

http://ericsembrat.com



About Me



Web Developer for College of Sciences

Graduate Student at Georgia State University

Twitter - @esembrat



Eric Sembrat






Game Plan



Our plan tonight is simple:

1. The Problem2. The Research3. The Plan4. The Product5. The Future6. Questions? Comments?


Game Plan




The Problem



Scene: College of Sciences: Deans Office.

The original Digital Asset Management (DAM) system was composed of:

• All assets located on a Shared Network Drive.• Stored in various file formats.

• No metadata present.


Setting the Stage



Metadata was available in two ways:

• On paper.• Photo releases, student names.

• With Personnel.• Memory of events, locations, etc.

It just was not being utilized.


Metadata



Files were stored using multiple image formats:

• .CR2• .TIF• .JPG/.PNG

Lossless formats ended up hampering OS photo preview capabilities.


File Formats




NutshellComplexity of Asset Access

No Preset Standardizations

Haphazard Storage Specifications

A Mess



When I started work at Georgia Tech in July 2012, I devoted my free time to planning out a solution to this problem.

The concept was simple:

• Can’t this DAM be managed via software?

• Can I make the software more flexible than what the campus offers?


The Goal




The Research



Before diving into building a system from the ground up, it would make sense to look at existing systems.

ResourceSpace showed up as one of the few open source solutions that were flexible and feature-complete.

Most software was fairly limited.


Reinvent the Wheel?

http://www.resourcespace.org/

http://www.resourcespace.org/




ResourceSpace



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9WRzMxE-Ig



However, ResourceSpace wasn’t as slick as I was hoping for.

The ease of customization and design I had become accustomed to in Drupal was non-existent.

Moreover, the plugin community in ResourceSpace is slim-to-none.


Researching

http://wiki.resourcespace.org/index.php/Plugin_list

http://wiki.resourcespace.org/index.php/Plugin_list



Moreover, limited use-case tests with the target audience showed that the system, workflow, upload process, and language was all unwieldy.

Rather than hacking together changes that would not be scalable to upgrades, I thought:

“Why not build this in Drupal?”


Usability




The Plan



The plan with designing DAM was to take:


Planning out DAM

Best Features of ResourceSpace Drupal’s Flexibility + = DAM




Planning out DAMBest Features of ResourceSpace

Multiple File Uploads

File-Specific Metadata

Tag-Based Searching

Batch-File Meta-tagging




Planning out DAMDrupal’s Flexibility

CAS Views Panels Taxonomy

Content Types Theming




The Product




Finished Product




Finished Product







Content TypePhoto Album contains:

• Title• Description• Category (Taxonomy)• Photo Uploads• .CR2• .TIF• .JPG/.PNG

- Multiupload Filefield Widget- Multiupload Imagefield Widget

- File entity- File entity inline

- File Entity Preview Multiple- File MIME




File Fields• Multiupload Filefield Widget & Multiupload

Imagefield Widget• Allows multiple photos to be uploaded at once.

• File entity, File entity inline, & File Entity Preview Multiple• Allows file previews to appear when editing a

photo album.

• File MIME• Treats raw photos as Images rather than Files.







Photo Processing

Photo Processing:- ImageMagick

- im_raw- ImageMagick Advanced

ImageMagick - Basic Photo Conversions from RAW to Lossy.

im_raw - Allows raw ImageMagick commands.

ImageMagick Advanced - Allows file extension renaming.




Taxonomies

Tagging:- Taxonomy

- Taxonomy display- Tagadelic

- Tagadelic Views

Taxonomy Display - Override default taxonomy page with View.

Tagadelic - Tag clouds.




Taxonomies




The Future



DAM has been in place since December 2012, although it has gone through a few iterations since its initial release.

• Changes to site workflow for tagging.• Simplifications of views/displays.• Patches for taxonomy_access,

imagemagick, entity, and multiupload_filefield_widget.


The Future



Access has been opened slightly to allow select members to download photography and assist in tagging / identifying.

However, DAM is still very much a CoS-internal system.


Access



DAM also works with video - although it is restricted to logging and tagging CoS-uploaded videos on YouTube.

For us, there is no current need for a video database of raw campus-shot video files.


Potential for Video



One major goal of constructing DAM was to minimize the maintainability of custom code.

All of DAM’s features are built using contributed modules and patches.

Edge-Cases - File Entity Preview Multiple.


Maintainability



One future goal for this project will be transposing the theme to the new Georgia Tech Adaptive/Responsive theme.

We have decided to wait on an official GT adaptive theme, instead of the custom themes we have set up.


Mobile



If there is interest, some features of this site can be exported for more widespread-use.

Caveat - Complexity of setup would require documentation for usage and server configuration to properly work with the Drupal Feature/imported design.


Exportability




Demo




[email protected]

Contact information is also available on my personal blog:

http://www.ericsembrat.com



mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



Education

Case Study: Digital Asset Management in Drupal