creating virtual folder

What is the best way to create a virtual container/folder in media bin using mediabin API? I don't want to do actual insert. I just would like a folder to act as representative of the folder on the network- very much like a virtual folder. It should just point to folders and assets on the network

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lyman

Greetings. I will try to give some basic ideas.

First, there is only one type of Container in MediaBin (i.e., no "virtual" containers), however they are relatively lightweight objects. Therefore, the commands for creating containers would be appropriate.

Now there are actually a few constructs that would correspond to a "virtual asset".

1) First are Placeholder assets. These are created directly and do not involve any form on insertion job. Placeholder assets have no preview initially although one can be copied onto them from an ingested asset. We do not allow adding a preview from an external source as we have no method of verifying that the uploaded thumbnail is valid. By relying on thumbnails from existing assets we know they are valid.

2) Second, there are Virtual Images. These are produced by retrieving an asset from MediaBin via the XML Encoder selecting the "Virtual Asset" option. The result is a proprietary XML file that can be dragged into another MediaBin. The primary use for these assets is within our Syndication Manager product to enable one MediaBin to contain an index of content actually stored in another. The entire process of encoding an XML file can be done with a single short circuit job instead of an insertion followed by a retrieval. The resultant XML file will still need to be inserted so this option reduces the process from three jobs to two.

3) Another form of syndication is the use of derivative assets. This involves processing the asset to a lower resolution image suitable for indexing. This apporach is used in cases where a large number of people want to access, for example, a JPEG thumbnail, and a handful of people need access to the high resolution original. Again this is normally accomplished via the Syndication Manager.

4) We also have the concept of an externaly indexed asset. This behaves in all ways like a fullblown MediaBin asset except that the image data lives in a filesystem accessible to MediaBin. This approach is most useful when people have large existing image stores on read only media. The drawback is that this involves some level of trust since MediaBin cannot itself guarantee that the eternally referenced file is not deleted or modified. Externally indeing an asest into a folder requres Full Control instead of Change to emphasize this greater responsibility. Also, externally indexed files need to deal with versioning by hand. The asset pointed to should be considered immutable, and so an additional version will have to use a user-defined naming convention. The name of the external asset does not have to agree with its name in MediaBin, and in fact one asest can have some versions externally indexed and others kept internally.

If you give some more details about you use case I am sure that one or the other of these options will present itself as making the most sense.

Cheers,

Lyman Hurd
MediaBin Server Team

MediaBin Server Team
Interwoven, Inc.

Hiral

Thank you for your prompt reply,

Is there any way I can get small examples of the choices 3 and 4. If I can try an example or if I can get some help from you regarding what dll, web service to look for to accomplish the process, I will appreciate it.

Thank You again,

Hiral Kanaiya

lyman

The simplest approach is to use the Windows Native Client or web client to do the insertions. Is there a reason to want to do them programatically. For example, are you trying to monitor the progress of a folder and keep the MediaBin repository in sync? Is there some reason not to do a straight insertion (e.g., lack of disk space)?

How many assets do you have and what classes are they generally? What is the turnover rate, in other words how often do new assets get inserted and retrieved?

There are many ways to acocmplish 3) and 4):

a) existing clients

b) hot folders

c) COM API

d) web services API

e) Java API ( actually a java "wrapped" version of web services).

The preferred choice will depend on your exact use case and your in house expertise.

At this point it would probably be most useful if you have time, to describe your problem in as much detail as possible and I will allow the user community to pipe up with "That sounds just like our situation and we solved the problem...".

Cheers,

Lyman

MediaBin Server Team
Interwoven, Inc.

Hiral

We will definately need it programatically since our company has 1000 to 2000 images sometimes in a day, it's very high volume to maintain it manually.

According to our business case. we need to have a way that we keep all of our mediabin containers synchronized with our network folder. we will be having the same sturcture of containers in media bin as our network share folders.

If any time some one makes changes to network share files we need it to reflect to media bin files.

I have discussed your options with our team and we all agree to option # 4 and would like some example of it. We are not quite clear how the versioning would be handled as you mentioned in there. But I would still like to get some examples or some help from your side to get these network folder and mediabin container assets synchronized.

from the technical options, all of our development is based on .Net techonologies so any suggetions that makes it easier for us to integrate with our .Net experties would be great.

Thank You,

Hiral Kanaiya
Valassis Inc

lyman

Well we have had similar use cases. There is no completely packaged solution but I can suggest some approaches and some pitfalls.

First you need to decide what operations are going to be performed on the network share. For example, is the folder structure static or do you expect it to change? Are files just being added or are they going to be deleted? Are files ever moved? Renamed?

In the simplest case in which the folders stay constant at least long enough to reconfigure, Hot Folders will allow you to set up the hierarchy and have them be populated. I would suggest that unless you are really short on disk space you mirror the assets into the bin.

In more sophisticated cases there are two models available. One is event driven. The script takes note when something happens. This is a bit fragile because if the monitoring service is down for any reason it can lose changes. The other is based on the Windows change journal.

Good luck. My overarching advice is to keep the cases as simple as possible! And keep this forum in mind if you hit snags.

Cheers,

Lyman Hurd
MediaBin Server Team

MediaBin Server Team
Interwoven, Inc.

Hiral

Can you give me a small example or specific guide where i can get these models and dll or classes in Media bin API to perform following
suggetion
"In more sophisticated cases there are two models available. One is event driven. The script takes note when something happens. This is a bit fragile because if the monitoring service is down for any reason it can lose changes. The other is based on the Windows change journal."

Thank You,

Hiral Kanaiya

lyman

I did ask around but there was not an easy answer. However if you work with your Sales Engineer he may be able to find something. Sorry to not be able to be of more specific help. Apparently while we have done similar things they were in the context of much more involved projects for customers.

Cheers,

Lyman Hurd
MediaBin Server Team

MediaBin Server Team
Interwoven, Inc.