Media/Content Library

The Media/Content Library plugin allows content items (basically, any files including media files such as images and videos) to be saved, organized, and served by Iotellect. The items are organized in a hierarchy of folders and each can be accessed by a URI determined by the folder structure and the Iotellect server host name. In addition to being used as typical Unified Data Model variables, the resources of the Media/Content Library can also be accesses through its HTTP API, for example from Iotellect Dashboard components.

The Media/Content Library API and REST API are separate plugins which require different authentication tokens. Although each plugin has an /auth method to generate authentication tokens, these tokens are not interchangeable.

Furthermore, REST commands have the path format <host>/rest/v1/<command>, while Media/Content Library commands use <host>/content/<command>/<path to target>.

Configuration

Configuration properties for the library.

Field Description	Type	Details
Allow Anonymous Access	Boolean	When enabled, content will be served regardless of whether the requestor is authenticated. When disabled, content will be served only to authenticated requestors. Especially applicable in the case where Anonymous Permissions are enabled.

File List

Folders and resources in the Media/Content Library are defined as entries in a table with the following fields:

Field Description	Type	Details
Type	String	Indicate whether the entry is a `Folder` or `File`. Folder - contains other resources or folders. Folder names are used to determine the URI of the API call for retrieving a resource. File - a resource to be accessed. File names are used to determine the URI of the API call for retrieving a resource.
Name	String	The name of the file or folder. The URI of the API call for retrieving a resource will be based on this field and the name fields of any parent folder or folders.
Folder Contents	Data Table	Nested data table which is accessible for `Folder` type rows. Identical format to the this data table. Indicates files and folders which are contained in a folder
File	Data Block	Data block which is accessible for `File` type rows. Upload the resource to be returned. Note that the file name in this field does not affect the URI generated for the API call.
Content Type	String	Accessible for `File` type rows. Sets the value for the `content-type` HTTP header indicating the original file type of the resource. For example a png image would have the value `image/png` and a text file `text/plain` in accordance with the RFC 7231 Media Types.
Cache Control	String	HTTP header defining instructions for client caching in accordance with RFC 7234 Cache Control. Public indicates that responses may be drawn from shared caches. Private indicates that responses are generated for a specific user, and must not be stored in a shared cache. No-cache indicates that the response must not be used to satisfy a subsequent request without successful validation from the server. No-store that a cache must not store any part of either the request or the response.
URI Alias	String	Accessible for `File` type rows, default value is NULL. If defined, URI Alias sets an alternative, absolute URI path for the file resource. This allows the file to be accessed via a custom URL, independent of its nested location within the Media Content Library's folder structure. For example, if a file named `textfile` is in the Media Content Library folder `example`, it will be available at `<server-host>/content/file/example/textfile` by default. Setting the URI Alias of the file to `robots.txt` will make the file accessible at `<server-host>/robots.txt`. The URI Alias may be expressed as a path, for example, `/nested/path/to/a/file.css`. Since the URI Alias is always treated as an absolute path, it does not need to contain a leading `/` , e.g. `/nested/path/to/a/file.css` and `nested/path/to/a/file.css` are equivalent. Keep in mind the following: URI Aliases must be unique across all entries in the files table. Changes to URI aliases (both new aliases and modifications to existing ones) require a server reboot to take effect. Folder entries created before the introduction of the URI Alias property will not have this column. To set a URI Alias for an existing folder, it must be deleted then recreated. If a URI Alias results in a file having the same URL as an existing dashboard, the file alias will take precedence over the dashboard alias.

Using the Media/Content Library REST API

File Request

Retrieves a resources from the library.

Request

GET /content/file/<Path to File>/<File Name>

Path to File - directory names in increasing order of depth separated by the / character.
File Name - Name of the file indicated in the Name field of the configuration table.

Request Header Fields

Authorization — Current authentication token. For more information about authentication, see Authenticating.

Response Body

Dependent on the content type of the resource being retrieved.

Example Request

Request:

GET https://localhost:8080/content/file/text_directory/text_file.txt

Example Response

Text file content

Media/Content Library Usage Example

Adding Content

The example below includes two rows, one configured as a text file, the other as a folder. The file example_text.txt contains text data, and the folder plants contains a sub-table with an image flower_picture.png.

Type	Name	Folder Contents	File	Content Type	Cache Control
File	text.txt	N/a	example_text.txt	text/plain	Public
Folder	plants	`Sub-table`	N/A	N/A	Public

Sub-Table

Type	Name	Folder Contents	File	Content Type	Cache Control
File	flower.png	N/a	flower_picture.png	image/png	Public

Authentication

All requests to the library must be fully authenticated, meaning they must contain a bearer token generated from the authorization request.

An example using cURL in a Linux command line appears as the following:

curl --request POST 'http://localhost:8080/web/v1/public/auth' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{"username":"admin","password":"admin"}'

Response

{
    "token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.dCI6MTY3NDIxMDg1NywiaXNzIjoiY29tLnRpYmJvLmxpbmtzZXJ2ZXIuc...",
    "simpleMode": false,
    "existsAdministrationDashboard": false,
    "accessedAdministrationDashboard": true,
    "administrationDashboardPath": "users.admin.dashboards.administration"
}

The token parameter contains the authentication token.

API Commands

File request

To retrieve the text data from the command line, the following request can be used:

curl --request GET 'http://localhost:8080/content/file/text.txt' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.dCI6MTY3NDIxMDg1NywiaXNzIjoiY29tLnRpYmJvLmxpbmtzZXJ2ZXIuc...'

Response

The above command will return the value of the file text.txt:

This is some example text.

Dashboards

To use a resource in a dashboard component, for example in an Image component, select the URL option and use the URI of the desired resource. In the example above, if the desired image is flowers.png in the folder plants/, than the URL to use will be http://localhost:8080/content/file/plants/flowers.png.

Replacing Default Assets

The Media/Content Library can also be used to replace any asset visible in the web UI. An example use case might be replacing the default Iotellect menu icons to match a given palette, or changing the default font.

Changing Icons

Suppose the goal is to replace the default server icon with a custom icon custom-icon.png. The default icon is displayed below:

Use the developer tools of the browser to determine the HTML that displays the icon:

<img src="/web/static/images/st_server.png" alt="" loading="lazy" draggable="false">

From this HTML, determine the location of the resource, in this case /web/static/images/st_server.png.

Add the custom-icon.png to the Media/Content library so it will display for /web/static/images/st_server.png and override the default icon. The below tables must be created in the Media/Content Library for this purpose:

Root Folder, ‘web’

Type	Name	Folder Contents	File	Content Type	Cache Control
Folder	web	`Sub-table-1`	N/A	N/A	Public

Sub Table 1 ('static' Folder)

Folder

static

Sub-table-2

N/A

Public

Sub Table 2 ('images' Folder)

Folder

images

Sub-table-3

N/A

Public

Sub-Table-3 (File)

File

st_server.png

N/A

custom_image.png

image/png

Public

As a result, any references to web/static/images/st_server.png will be overwritten by the custom icon custom-icon.png.

Customize Fonts

Default fonts can be overridden with the same process described above. Using the developer tools, identify the default font location. For example, the following part of the fonts.css file indicates the storage location of the Roboto-Light fonts:

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Roboto';
  src: url(/web/static/fonts/Roboto-Light.woff2) format('woff2'),
  url(/web/static/fonts/Roboto-Light.woff) format('woff'),
  url(/web/static/fonts/Roboto-Light.ttf) format('truetype');
  font-weight: 300;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

From the above, the default locations of the fonts are /web/static/fonts/Roboto-Light.woff2, with format woff2, and so on. Create a similar folder and file structure in the Media/Content Library leading to /web/static/fonts/Roboto-Light.woff2, similar to what was described in the Changing Icons section.

Root Folder, ‘web’

Type	Name	Folder Contents	File	Content Type	Cache Control
Folder	web	`Sub-table-1`	N/A	N/A	Public

Sub Table 1 ('static' Folder)

Folder

static

Sub-table-2

N/A

Public

Sub Table 2 ('fonts' Folder)

Folder

fonts

Sub-table-3

N/A

Public

Sub-Table-3 (File)

File	Roboto-Light.woff2	N/A	`custom-font.woff2`	`font/woff2`	Public
File	Roboto-Light.woff	N/A	`custom-font.woff`	`font/woff`	Public
File	Roboto-Light.ttf	N/A	`custom-font.ttf`	`font/ttf` or `font/compressed-ttf` or `application/x-font-ttf-compressed` as is appropriate.	Public

In place of the default fonts, the custom fonts will be loaded.

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