Change default asset directories / same directory for all users [#282166]

Is there a way to change the default directories or have all users upload assets to the same directory?

If Asset is used to add assets which will be used throughout the site (which is where its real value lies), it becomes a serious usability problem if people have to search through other people's directories to find the asset they are looking for.

Use-case:

1: User-A creates a node and uploads an asset.
2: User-B creates a node that happens to include the same asset.

This will be a common scenario on the site I'm working on now, and in fact on most of the sites I imagine building in the future.

Comments

Comment #1

escoles CreditAttribution: escoles commented 13 July 2008 at 23:30

Here's a better use-case:

Admin Asst 'Mary' gives intern 'Katie' a pile of images to upload as assets.
Katie logs in with her own user ID, which is assigned to a role that has the right to add assets, but lacks many other rights. (Mary follows the accepted best-practice of not giving out her own user ID to other people.)
Mary's work load is heavy, so Mary, Katie and salesman Mitch split up the work of updating the product pages with new images, Since Mitch doesn't know they were uploaded by Katie into her own asset subdirectory, he thinks they haven't been uploaded and kicks it all back to Mary -- thereby saving no time.

In other words, having users upload only to their own asset folders is a significant impediment to usability. It probably works fine on a "community" site or on a single-user blog, but on a corporate site, it's a real problem.

If this is fixed in 2.x, I can focus on trying to get that working (at this point, it causes a whitescreen on my install).

Comment #2

wmostrey CreditAttribution: wmostrey commented 14 July 2008 at 06:47

Why don't you just create a folder named "Public" and ask your customers/users to put files they want to share into that folder? So the can upload personal files in their homedir but if they want to share documents they go up one level and select the "Public" folder. The same applies for when they want to insert a shared document.

Comment #3

escoles CreditAttribution: escoles commented 14 July 2008 at 09:15

I don't see how that could work. When I upload assets, I don't have the option to put the files in any other directory but the user directory.

Comment #4

wmostrey CreditAttribution: wmostrey commented 14 July 2008 at 10:21

If you are using asset v1 then the first option in the upload form is "Directory", where you can select all directories the user has access to. Please note that there is currently a bug where users might not access a public folder:

http://drupal.org/node/255986

I'm working to get that bug fixed asap.

Comment #5

escoles CreditAttribution: escoles commented 14 July 2008 at 12:53

Status:

Active

» Fixed

I'll cop to boneheadedness for not noticing/trying that out. Thanks. Marking 'fixed' because even if there's a bug and I can't make it work, that's a different problem.