Modules

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Modules appear as tabs in the left navigation pane and represent units of functionality, such as user management, media management, etc.

Module management

Modules are your toolkit for customizing the application.

New modules need to be added as TypeScript code with or without configuration files. A module can define one or more items in the navigation. A module is always associated with a set of roles to steer access to it. That means, a user needs to be assigned a sufficient role to access the module. Moreover, if the role suffices, the user can enable or disable the module in the application UI. Indeed, modules can also be disabled in the system configuration. In this case, they won't even appear in the UI.

Warning: Some modules are critical and cannot be disabled without breaking the application! Such modules include authentication, legal, and theming.

Out-of-the-box modules

The following module are shipped with the HCMS CSK by default.

Theming module

The theming module encompasses basic options for customizing the "look and feel" of the application. E.g., it defines colors, images (incl. favicon), fonts, shape corners and sizes, and some other basic theming parameters of the application GUI. Using the default theming module, you can customize:

• login page
• navigation bar
• generic content
• detail panel

Indeed, your space for creativity is limited to the aforementioned parameters. However, the Client is delivered as a progressive web application, with automatic resizing of icon, a splash screen image, and so on.

Themes can be edited in the GUI, and the Client is shipped with a few default themes. The active theme can be overriden by a special argument on the login page. At initialization (of the application), the default censhare schema is created for the theme.

Media module (aka Media Room)

This is the "main" module that is also the start page of the default application. Most features are also available in the other product of the Online Solutions family, e.g., the Content Picker.

Supported assets

Supported assets are images, videos, PDF files, and zip archives.

Listing of media assets

The module lists all available assets. There are various possibilities to browse through assets.

• infinite scrolling (using the HCMS pagination in the background)
• different views with or without a preview: list, tiles, cards
• single or multiple selection of assets is possible
• a tab with a detailed information for the selected asset
• sorting is possible by name and creation date

If single selection is active, you can access the detailed information about the asset from the list. If multiple selection is active, you can download selected assets as a zip archive.

Asset search

In an asset list, it is possible to perform either a simple text-based or structured search. The search field enables users to search for a generic fulltext, name, and tag. The application supports auto-complete.

Asset detailed information and editing panel

A special panel with detailed asset information appears differently depending on the size of the browser window: either as a side panel if the size allows or as a separate page if the browser window is not big enough.

It displays the asset metadata, download and collect buttons. Using this panel, users can add or edit some of the metadata, download the original file or its derivative of a predefined size, and add the asset to a collection.

For the detailed view panel, we implemented a webhook that prevents changes of certain sensitive properties as such actions are often a sign of a hack attempt. Two changes trigger the webhook:

• permission changes done by the non-admin non-owner
• approval state change done by anyone except a full admin

Uploading assets

Assets can be uploaded per drag-and-drop and a file dialogue. They get uploaded directly to the HCMS from where they are saved to the censhare Server. The webhook behind the upload functionality automatically assigns the following to the newly uploaded asset:

• the asset type based on the content type
  • and refuses to accept unsupported types
• the author to the current user
  • and ignores any fake supplied value, if any
• the owner to the current user
• the initial approval state (if any approval workflow is configured)
  • and removes any attempt to set any other approval state (which is almost certainly a hack attempt)

Collections

Collections can be seen as folders for assets in the application. They are displayed as list views and allow you to perform the same actions on the included assets. However, only a few first assets in the collection are shown in the list.

New collections can be added inside the collections module or from an asset detailed view panel. Moving assets between collections is also available in the asset lists or detailed view panels, depending on whether you want to move a few assets or only one asset.

Approval workflow

The default approval workflow consists of a few basic stages: uploaded, waiting for approval, rejected, approved. An approval workflow needs to be started by the user who uploads new assets (for these assets) and serves as a quality gate.

The approval workflow can be enabled in the GUI. Once enabled, the approval workflow will add required buttons to the GUI, and the assets that are affected by the workflow, will appear in the approval tab. Here, the user can filter assets using various criteria and bulk-approve or reject assets, or check them one-by-one.

Approval workflows in the Client can be integrated with server-side workflows by an automation. Such integrations need to be developed separately.