Asset management (Legacy]

Note: The legacy Asset Management system is unavailable in Commerce versions 11 and higher. Instead, the Episerver asset system is used by default, see Assets and media.
To enable the legacy Asset management System, set the UseLegacyAssetSystem configuration setting to true in the web.config files of both the Commerce Manager and the front-end sites. For the new system, the value is the default (false or null). If you use the legacy system, the Assets tab in the catalog edting UI is removed.

This topic describes the legacy asset management system and its features, including: customizing assets, displaying assets, securing assets and authorization, and storing data. Episerver Commerce lets you associate assets with products and SKUs. Those associated assets are then available in the Entry.Assets collection. However, you can render and retrieve assets independently. Episerver Commerce also includes controls that let you display or make digital assets downloadable.

Episerver Commerce comes with asset management providers for file storage, MSSQL storage and Amazon S3. You can also create your own asset management provider. See Storing Data for information. 

In this topic

• Item assets
• Folder elements
  • FolderElementEntity
  • FolderEntity
  • Creating a folder
• Asset providers
  • BlogStorageProvider
  • BlobInfo

Classes in this topic are available in the following namespaces:

• Mediachase.Commerce.Assets
• Mediachase.Commerce.Catalog.Objects
• Mediachase.Library.AmazonProviders

Item assets

ItemAsset represents an asset association with a SKU. It provides the linking information (SKU and Asset IDs), and is a simple object with properties. The Entry has a collection of these objects representing the assets associated with an entry.

ItemAsset[] assets = Entry.Assets;
foreach (ItemAsset asset in assets)
{
int assetId = asset.AssetKey;
string groupName = asset.GroupName;
}

Folder elements

FolderElementEntity

Contains the information pertaining to the asset. Also contains a method to get the virtual URL associated with an asset (GetUrl()).

FolderElementEntity[] asset = EntityManager.List<FolderElementEntity>(FolderElementEntity.ClassName, filters);
        string url = asset0.GetUrl();
        DateTime dateCreated = asset0.Created;

Contains a static method to create a new asset.

FolderElementEntity.Create(asset parent folder id, file name, System.IO.Stream)

FolderElementEntity.Copy(element object ref, parent folderid);
            FolderElementEntity.Delete(element object ref);
            FolderElementEntity.Move(element object ref, new parent folderid)

This object also provides access to custom fields that you create in the Business Foundation {BF} definition of the FolderElement class.

FolderElementEntity[] asset = EntityManager.List<FolderElementEntity>(FolderElementEntity.ClassName, filters);
        string additionalInfo = asset0.Properties"MyAddedProperty".Value.ToString();

FolderEntity

Represents an asset folder, and is useful when you are navigating the asset hierarchy. Retrieve with EntityManager. This is a Manager class that retrieves FolderElementEntity and FolderEntity objects.

FolderEntity[] folders = EntityManager.List<FolderEntity>(FolderEntity.ClassName, filters);
        string name = folders0.Name;
        PrimaryKeyId folderId = folders0.PrimaryKeyId.Value

Creating a Folder

The following example creates an asset folder.

private int CreateFolder(string name) 
 { 
   try
     { 
       FolderEntity folder = new FolderEntity(); 
       folder.Name = name; 
       folder.PrimaryKeyId = BusinessManager.Create(folder); 
       //Moves folder under the root 
       FolderEntity.Move(folder, 1); 
       return folder.PrimaryKeyId.Value; 
     } 
   catch (Exception ex) 
     { 
       LogManager.GetLogger("Asset Upload").Error(ex.Message, ex); 
       return -1; 
     } 
 } 

 //Adding an asset 

private void AddFilesToFolder(int siteFolderId) 
  { 
    foreach (FileInfo info in dir.GetFiles()) 
      { 
        FolderElementEntity entity = FolderElementEntity.Create(siteFolderId, info.FullName, info.OpenRead()); 
      }
  }

BlobStorageProvider

Represents an asset provider and returns information about the provider, to retrieve blob information. In most cases, you do not need to use this provider. If you want to implement complex business logic regarding the storage provider or override business logic in the provider, use BlobStorageProvider.

BlobStorage is a Manager class to retrieve BlobStorageProviders. It also exposes events that can be listened to, for instance when an asset is added, allowing custom logic to be implemented during asset management activities.

BlobStorageProvider prov = BlobStorage.Providerselement.BlobStorageProvider;
        string description = prov.Description;
        string name = prov.Name;

BlobInfo

Simple object with blob information about the asset. Its properties are a subset of the FolderElementEntity object.

BlobStorageProvider prov = BlobStorage.Providerselement.BlobStorageProvider;
        BlobInfo info = prov.GetInfo(new Guid(myFolderElementEntity.BlobUid.ToString()));
        string fileName = info.FileName;

Four primary database tables have asset information.

• CatalogItemAsset. Contains the asset to product/SKU mapping.
• cls_FolderElement. Contains information about the assets.
• cls_Folder. Contains information about folders in the asset system.
• McBlobStorage. Contains the asset blob information used by the SqlBlobStorageProvider.

Related topics

• Asset management
• Asset object model
• Configuring assets
• Customizing assets
• Displaying assets
• Storing data