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Announcing KickAssets 3 for SilverStripe

Aaron 'Uncle Cheese' Carlino has just released module KickAssets 3 - an alternative to the Files and Images section in SilverStripe, using React JS.

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Today, I've released KickAssets 3, an alternative to the Files and Images section (AssetAdmin) in SilverStripe.

But why read? Here it is, in 49 seconds of superfluous flair:

Kick-History

Several years ago, I released this module for SilverStripe 2.4. It developed somewhat of a cult following, mostly owing the CMS's core file management experience that was just begging to be better. The module offered a number of features that were lacking from SilverStripe at the time, including drag-and-drop uploading, multi-selection, and many other desktop-like UI paradigms. After the release of SilverStripe 3, I was surprised to find that many users were looking for a 3.x adaptation of the module, and I hastily rewrote it to be just good enough to not be broken and released it as KickAssets 2.

Last year, I completely fell in love with React JS, a UI library authored and maintained by Facebook. It's really invigorated my desire to create awesome frontend experiences for users and made me question how I could get React and SilverStripe to work together happily. I decided KickAssets 3 would be the perfect test project.

As it turned out, it was a lot of fun to build, and I learned way more about JavaScript and frontend optimisation than I ever dreamed I would. Incidentally, as my codebase matured, adjacent conversations were igniting in the SilverStripe community on the topic of bringing React JS into the core, and coincidentally, the test flight for this integration is a revamped Files and Images section for SilverStripe 4.0, coming next year.

Today I'm happy to announce the public release of KickAssets 3. I hope you'll find that it's fast, slick, and packed full of features that are missing from the default file management experience in SilverStripe.

Screenshots

The KickAssets UI is rendered in a modal window, to provide a consistent experience with files regardless of context. Whether you're attaching a file to an upload field, browsing media for the TinyMCE editor, or just doing general file management, the experience is always the same, and it doesn't take you away from what you're doing.

Create new folders in line.

Lasso select and drag-and-drop files.

Edit filenames in context by double-clicking the text.

Search for files without losing your place.

Use the list view to show more listings in the viewport, and expose more file attributes.

Sort files by a variety of properties.

Perform bulk actions on multi-selections.

More Information

Check out the Github page to learn more about the JavaScript API, installation, and more.

If you want to write a guest blog post about an awesome module that you have built, email vinh@silverstripe.com

About the author
Aaron Carlino

Aaron Carlino, better known by his whimsical pseudonym Uncle Cheese has been an active member of the SilverStripe community since 2007, and has never looked back. In that time, he has established himself as a support resource, mentor, and contributor of some of the framework's most popular open source modules.

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Comments

  • Hi, Christian,

    Great question. KickAssets 3 has a JavaScript API (https://github.com/unclecheese/silverstripe-kickassets#javascript-api) that will make integrations like that trivial. First will be Dropzone, then HtmlEditorField. Stay tuned!

    Thanks for your feedback!

    Posted by Aaron Carlino, 13/11/2015 10:17am (9 years ago)

  • This is so great! Is there a config setting to enable it for use within tiny or uploadfields/dropzones?

    Posted by Christian Kreft, 12/11/2015 10:03pm (9 years ago)

  • This just looks amazing!
    Can't wait to install and test it and see just how well it runs.
    Really this looks to handle one of SilverStripes Lacking areas. Earlier i have testet kick assets admin, but found the interface to be to far away from the rest of the administration.

    Posted by Thomas B. Nielsen, 12/11/2015 7:15pm (9 years ago)

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