Understanding Media

What's included in Media?

In the case of SiteFarm, and its underlying software Drupal, media is a term that encompasses a variety of media types, including:

  • Images (.jpg, .png, .gif etc.)
    • Limited in size to 3MB
    • Must be original content, royalty-free, and/or be sourced from UC Davis' photo library
    • Should be prepped for preferred size before uploading to your site
  • Documents (.pdf, .doc/x, .xls/x, etc.)
    • Limited in size to 10MB
    • Should not require restricted access (see the write-up for Box.com for securing files or restricting access)
    • Follow the recommended naming convention
  • Video
    • Must be hosted on an external platform like YouTube or Vimeo
    • Not presently compatible with Aggie Videos due to their oEmbed structure
    • Video file size is not a consideration
  • Audio 
    • Limited in size to 4MB
    • .mp3, .wav, .aac
  • .SVG files
    • File extension stands for Scalable Vector Graphic
    • Commonly used for logos, diagrams, and graphs, and charts

Where your media is stored

All your content, including your media files, is stored within your site's database. You have two means of accessing those files:

The Files system

The default, built-in File system is the original file management feature in Drupal and, while always accessible to you, it isn't necessarily easy to use. To access it, navigate to Shortcuts » All Content » Files tab. The Files dashboard provides you with a paged list of files from which you can filter by name, file type, and/or their status (permanent or temporary).

Despite what you might think, files can't be deleted from this location. If you need a file of any type permanently deleted, a user with the Site Manager role will need to use Fancy File Delete to remove it.

The Media Library

Added in December 2020, the Media Library is the preferred means of adding and managing any media you want to add to your site, though there are a few niche cases where using the above Files system is still necessary. You can find your Media Library in two possible ways: Shortcuts » Media or Shortcuts » All Content » Media tab. The Media Library dashboard is a full user-friendly interface with great tools available for finding, working with, and managing your media, including assigning taxonomy terms to help organize and find your media especially if your library has hundreds of entities.

One-to-Many Relationship
Files and images by themselves, when used with your content via the old Files system, are permanently associated with that piece of content. It used to be that if you uploaded an image it could only be used in one place and if you needed to use it in a second location of your site you would need to upload it again, but not with Media Library. The new system gives you the ability to reuse a single image across multiple locations in blocks and pages, even multiple times on a single page. Should you need to update or replace the media, you can now go directly to the entity in your Media Library, replace that one file, and have it update every location where that piece of media is being used. 

Get into the Details

This page has provided a very brief overview and we encourage you to dig deeper into the media you're particularly interested in using. Here's a list of related topics: