Change Path To Assets

You do all your layout and media management in the server. The server library is just the servers own representation of your media and isn't designed for you to be looking in there or hand editing XLF files.

It's a flat structure with each media file for a very good reason. For example say you had a 1GB video file which you use on 5 layouts, then with your proposal the client would have to download that 1GB 5 times - one for each of the folders in use - or at least store it 5 times. It makes that interaction unnecessarily complicated.

If you want to logically group stuff in the server, then tags is probably the way to go. Then you can filter searches etc on the tags you set up.

Alex

Hi Alex,

Thank you very much for the fast reply. I appreciate it.

I'm not sure why you say that a file has to be downloaded 5 times just because it's stored in a subfolder? If for example all Flash files are in C:\XiboLibrary\FlashFiles then wouldn't the client download the path and therefore need to download it only once? Even if you had 5 presentations - it would look for that file following the path to the respective subfolder.

Maybe it's my fault for not explaining this further. For example if you need to replace a flash module, or a movie file on only ONE client machine, you have to create a whole new template for this. Whereas if things were sorted out it would be easy to login to their machine and do the change manually. This and a whole host of other features would be possible in such cases - such as expanding and pulling in text from a text file into a flash module.

This could even be accomplished even by letting assets have a user defined name instead of changing their name when they're added.

For example:

If I have "ClientJeff-01.swf" Xibo changes it upon import to 93.swf. Now imagine that Jeff wants a change in his particular swf. It would be much easier to just go in and look for "ClientJeff-01.swf" than go through all the swf's and find out that 93swf is the one that needs to be changed for him.

So would I be able to keep (retain) the naming at least??

Maybe I'm not seeing this correctly but I think that I'm assuming (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that Xibo tries to make things easier for both the admin and user much the same way wordpress does for doing a website. Still, even in wordpress you can go in an change thing from the "inside" if the need arises.

You shouldn't be managing media by manually changing files in the server library.

You should be using the server interface to replace one version of a media file for a new one - the rest is done for you.

In your example, Jeff would log in to the server, find the layout he wants his ClientJeff-01.swf flash media to be changed in, edit it and then choose to replace it with a new version. He doesn't care that the original was called 93.swf and the replacement 105.swf.

Alex

:) Your answer would work just fine if Jeff knew how to do this. Unfortunately my "Jeffs" (notice the plural) consider doing something like that to be way above their tech skills. Their computer skills resume pretty much to "Sounds good... you do it"

Asking the client to go learn some Flash, change their module and then log into the admin and go through the replacement procedure may seem 'easy-peasy' to you or me... but not to most people.

Not much is gained if I have to go to clients and do this with them - not to mention they don't have the Flash dev tools.

I understand from your answer that you're very against working outside the internal framework provided by Xibo... but why is that? Is there anything being gained by not being able to retain file names or have subfolders?

Please don't take this the wrong way as I'm not trying to come across as crass - but Xibo is open source and not Microsoft where the code has to be tucked away under layers of protections....

Put very simply, modifying a file in the server library except via the server interface will break any client trying to use that media. It will download the file, find that the checksum of that file is incorrect and attempt to download it again and again and again and never complete.

Modifying a file directly on a client will mean the client will see the file has changed and download a fresh copy from the server.

Xibo is there to ensure that media files haven't been corrupted or interferred with in any way and it will enforce that.

I'm afraid it just doesn't work the way you want it to.

If you give users access to modify the server library, at some point they'll delete a file they didn't mean to which will break a layout for any client that doesn't have that file already. You take away every sanity check and allow the users to break the install at will.

You need to train your users to use the system - it's as simple as that.

We have the system deployed at my place of work and several non-technical users are quite able to modify layouts.

If it's really beyond their ability, you need to wait for the API for the Xibo server to be released and then write some middleware to manage uploading new versions of files for your users.

Alex

Just to add a little to Alex's message - it renames the file because it is designed to be used by many users and designed to be robust.

For example - say Jeff-1 and Jeff-2 both have a file called "MyFlashFile.swf", they both want to upload it.. no problem, the library can take it as 1.swf, 2.swf. Say Jeff-1 makes some changes to his file, and wants to upload it to a test layout - he can upload the same file again - no problem, it gets called 3.swf. (1.swf can continute to be used in layouts until Jeff is happy with it).

If they were all named the same, or sat in a user specific / media specific folder structure - we would inevitably end up with file naming conflicts... and get into a horrible mess ;-)

We arent trying to make it difficult to use - just the opposite infact... but the worst case for us (having to support the project) would be to end up with a host of questions asking why files can't be uploaded correctly (name clashes).

Bascially its designed that way to be easy and reliable.

Hopefully your Jeff's can be shown that it is quite easy to upload and replace a file in their library - easier than finding and replacing a file directly.

Luckily with the beauty of open source you can have a play and modify the code if you want to - we wouldnt recommend putting in a change like this though - for the above reasons.

An alternative, that you might find workable in your case, is to create your own folder structure containing SWF files for each Jeff - and reference these directly using the EMBEDDED media type.

Hah :) That DOES IT! Thank you Dan

My clients aren't really into learning :( .... Either for lack of knowledge or lack of time. So some solution was necessary in order to implement all they wanted.

I focused so much on the flash that I forgot/missed the web page option.

I agree with both you and Alex with regards to the madness that would ensue from letting everybody do as they please. With the web page option I have the option to expand into what I need without affecting anything else.

Many thanks again :)