RFC: Payload DAM improvements

[paulpopus]

This RFC covers improvements to Payload’s open source features around digital assets management (DAM). Think file uploads, image manipulation and organization.

As part of the wider 4.0 redesign we will also be enhancing the UI around file uploads

Proposed changes

• Move storage adapters to their own property instead of plugins (pr)
• Video previews with controls

• PDFs preview
• Video and PDF thumbnails
• Support localized files (eg. upload one file in english, another for french)
• Support file versioning
• Updated documentation
  • New /docs/digital-assets-management overview covering all features top level
  • New DAM starter template
• Add support for on-demand resizing
• Add dynamic link sharing with expiration dates
• Usage references, eg. track where an image is used

We’d like to hear about your experience, your feedback and suggestions for improvements we can make to the DAM.
There’s also a million things that we could build, so for the things that matter most to you please 👍 them below so we can best prioritise them.

[linus-ha]

We have a custom implementation of "sizes". We define an upload doc type. Based on that type, a different set of sizes is created in a post-processing step. Having something like this out of the box would be great. (Example: Article picture vs. logo)

Post processing is done via a custom background job system, more capable than the one the payload includes. In the future we are adding, for example, video post-processing to this - just another upload doc type in the same collection.

If there is interest in this, ping me, and I could share more details.

[michaelshowes]

I mentioned aspect ratio lock for image cropping the Community Call, but instead of rewriting here, I'll link to the discussion from 2.5 years ago 😂

#3557

[swheeler7]

aspect ratio lock would be the biggest improvement imo

[robinvangestel21]

Hi team.

We are experiencing some issues with cropping images with an EXIF orientation bigger than one (this affects all photos taken in portrait mode on iOS, for example). I've created an issue and PR (#16350) with unit tests for this (against V3). Would be amazing if this issue could be resolved in V3 already or in V4.

If the PR needs to be made against V4, I'd be happy to do so!

[AaronClaes]

These changes look very promising already!

It would be great to be able to register our own custom preview components for specific file types.
We work a lot with 3D files (.glb and .gltf), I wouldn't expect Payload to have previews for formats that niche, but having an extension point to plug in our own would be perfect.

(we currently solve this by having a custom UI field in our upload collection)

Also +1 on usage references & file versioning!

[paulpopus]

Great idea, looking into it!

[cyphernetsecurity]

This looks very promising One area that might become increasingly important as DAM workflows evolve is security validation during the upload lifecycle itself.
A lot of teams already handle storage, transformations, previews, versioning and organization, but security checks often happen later in the pipeline or outside the CMS entirely.
Having clear extension points around upload processing and validation hooks could open up some interesting possibilities for custom security, compliance and content verification workflows.

Looking forward to seeing how the DAM architecture evolves in v4.