#8949 Concept of context aware media access

Parent Category:: DPMedia

Category:: Introduction

Last Updated:: Allon Moritz, Wednesday, 20 December 2023 11:06

Created:: Tuesday, 11 January 2022 13:34

Hits:: 2316

Introduction

DPMedia contains some plugins which do allow to work horizontal across the media manager or context aware with media files. What does this mean? Out of the box, the Joomla core media manager looks the same for all users on every form. DPMedia offers the possibility to display references for an image, restrict the media manager for specific folders or to behave differently in special situations when used in a media form field like the intro field of articles or media custom fields. Lets get some use cases:

Avatars
A user custom field represents an avatar. So the admin wants that every user can only manipulate images in her/his personal folder when selecting an image in the media custom field.
Images per article
On sites where articles have a lot of images, the site admin wants to allow publishers to upload images only in folders per article.
Images per category
On sites where images in articles of categories should be shared but not outside of it, the site admin wants to allow publishers to upload images only in folders per category.
A custom field on Google drive
A media custom field should only display images from Google drive.
Deny access to certain folders
A media folder from any adapter should be visible and accessible for special users groups only.
Want to rename an image
If an image should get a new name, then the references should be updated.

Context

The media manager is mostly used in a context. A very well known example is, when editing an article. If the publisher wants to select an intro image, then the media manager is opened in the "Article" context. Or when a user edits it's profile avatar custom field, then it has the context "User". So a context is formed always by the environment the media field is used.

Connecting a context with a restriction is the responsibility of Content plugin. It fills the forms with the necessary information and configures the media fields the way that only restricted folders are used.

Currently are the following contexts supported:

Core articles [com_content.article]
Core banners [com_banners.banner]
Core contacts [com_contact.contact]
Core newsfeeds [com_newsfeeds.newsfeed]
Core users [com_users.user]
DPCalendar events [com_dpcalendar.event]

Restrictions

Restrictions can be defined as adapters in the Restricted plugin. These adapters can be applied in the Content plugin globally to all media fields, per context like articles in the component options, per category of such a context or per custom field.

Permissions

Permissions can be defined per folder in the media manager itself. If a user is opening the media manager then from a media field or custom field and doesn't have access to certain folders, then they won't appear in the list. This functionality is added by the Permissions plugin.

References

References are indicated as overlay on an image when they exist. There is also an action available which opens a modal that lists all the references within Joomla. This functionality is added by the References plugin.