If you store multiple file (media) formats in your asset library then you may want users to be able to quickly search by their type.

Here‘s how to set up a dropdown list containing the 'file formats' you want (such as ‘Images‘, ‘Video‘, 'Documents', 'Audio' etc.) and have the dropdown automatically populated for new assets based on their file extension:

Step 1: Go to Admin > Attributes and click 'Add a new attribute'.

Step 2: Create the new attribute as type 'Dropdown' or 'Checklist', depending on how you want users to be able to search across multiple file formats. Call the attribute 'File Format' (or similar) and make sure that 'searchable' is checked before saving the new attribute.

Step 3: Next click on the [edit list values] link for this new attribute. This is where you can add in the different categories of file format along with the associated file extensions.

Below there are five format types that you can copy into your Asset Bank. For each, enter the name ("Image") and then the following extensions ("|" pipe delimited) into the 'Embedded data mapping value' field.

Image

arw|bmp|cr2|cr3|crw|dcr|dng|gif|iiq|j2k|jfif|jp2|jpe|jpeg|jpf|jpg|kdc|nef|orf|pcd|pcx|pef|png|ppm|raf|raw|rw2|svg|tga|tif|tiff|webp|wmf|x3f|heic

Design File

aaf|aep|ai|dst|emb|eps|idml|indd|prproj|ps|psb|psd|psp

Video

3g2|3gp|asf|asx|avi|divx|dv|f4v|flv|m2v|m4v|mj2|mkv|mov|mp4|mpeg|mpg|mts|mxf|rm|ts|vob|wmv

Audio

aac|aif|aiff|au|flac|m4a|mid|midi|mp3|wav|wma

Document

csv|doc|docm|docx|dotx|key|odp|ods|odt|pages|pdf|pot|potx|ppsx|ppt|pptm|pptx|rtf|sxw|tex|txt|wp|wp7|wpd|xls|xlsx|xlt

Other

7z|cfa|dfont|eml|gz|htm|html|img|lnk|lst|md5|mht|msg|otf|part|partial|pek|qxd|rar|swf|tmp|ttc|ttf|vcf|warc|xmf|xmp|zip

Step 4: Once your attribute is created you should make sure that it is displaying on the relevant pages. On the Admin > Attributes > Display Attributes tab you can select different areas of the application to add the display of your new attribute. We recommend 'View' plus 'Advanced search form' and 'Filter bar' that are both located within the 'Searching' area.

Step 5: To automate the population of this attribute, go to Admin > Attributes > Embedded Data Mappings. Create a new mapping as follows:

• Attribute: Select the new 'File Format' attribute you have created
• Embedded data type: [other]
• Embedded data value: Filename Extension
• Mapping direction: Upload
• Delimiter: Leave blank
• Binary data: Leave blank

Once complete, to see it working complete a single upload and you should see the appropriate value selected during the upload process. To retrospectively extract values for existing assets in your system go to Admin > Attributes > Embedded Data Mappings, and click on 'rerun metadata extraction for existing assets'.