How Do I Manage My Assets?
The term 'assets' when used in BlinkMobile terms refers to those objects in your answerSpaces that define how it looks and in some cases, behaves. Examples might be javascripts or graphic images.
The Asset Manager tool allows you to manage your Image and other Assets across all your answerSpaces through a central location. It removes the need to store multiple copies of the same asset (for example, corporate logos) in multiple answerspaces. The mechanism by which this is achieved is called the Content Delivery Network (CDN).
What is the CDN?
To manage assets efficiently and with less redundant data, every answerspace is assigned to organisations, among which there is one primary organisation that owns a particular answerspace. Every organisation has different CDN locations that point to a location where its assets are kept. In turn, every answerspace points to a CDN location.
Using the CDN
The BlinkMobile Admin Manager now includes the link to ‘Manage Assets’ under the ‘Manage...’ menu option. This tool allows you to add/edit/delete assets to answerSpaces as well as copy or move assets between CDN locations. It removes the need to store multiple copies of the same asset (for example corporate logos) within multiple answerSpaces.
All the CDN locations associated with your Organisation's answerSpace will be shown below the asset listing for the current answerSpace.
If you wish to move, copy or delete an asset from a CDN location, simply click on it and choose from the dropdown list:
Your default CDN is set in the answerSpace settings window:
Adding or Importing Assets to the CDN
When you want to add an asset to your CDN, it's really quite simple.
Firstly, make sure your default CDN location is correct. (See here for instructions).
Choose Manage... Assets. The Asset Manager will appear. At the top of this screen is the Upload Pane:
Click 'Choose File' and navigate through the File system Window until you find the file you wish to add:
Click 'Open' and the file name will appear in the Upload Pane. If you wish add another file, just click the '+add' button. If you wish to add multiple files that are in an archive, you can do this by clicking 'Choose File' and selecting the Archive file:
It will appear in the upload pane with an option to extract the archive into its multiple components. To do this, click the checkbox:
Once you have selected all your assets, click the 'Upload' button and a progress message will appear. Your listing will not be immediately updated, but if you wish, you can click the 'Refresh' button.
Note that there are now new assets available for use.