Skip to end of metadata
Go to start of metadata

You are viewing an old version of this page. View the current version.

Compare with Current View Page History

« Previous Version 5 Next »

Multimedia Manager is a useful tool for organizing your audio and video multimedia files for a CommCare application. It allows you to upload, preview, and replace your audio and image files, verify that no files are missing, and enables one-click download of all your media files, with the correct file names.  When preparing your media files, be sure to follow the guidelines on the wiki for audio and image file types and sizes.

STEP 1: Adding a multimedia reference 

Inside the form builder, chose the question or label where you want an image to be displayed, or from which you want an audio file to be playable.  

In the Question Properties box, under Content, you will see the option to add various types of media or properties.  The first two buttons are "image" and "audio," as you can see below: 

If you click on either of these buttons, you will see a file-path automatically generated under each language's display text.  

Here we have clicked on both image and audio, so both languages get a file-path:

Each language of display text gets its own set of file-paths in case you want separate files.  However, by default the automatically generated file-paths are the same for all languages; you'll have to manually adjust them if you want support for more than one language (contact Dimagi for help).  The file path automatically uses the Question ID, so here is what it looks like for an image for the question labeled hemoglobin_low_counsel: 

jr://file/commcare/image/data/hemoglobin_low_counsel.png

Images are automatically given the file type "png" and audio files "mp3"

To remove a multimedia reference, simply click on the big red "delete" button.

 

STEP 2: Uploading Files

Note that it is not necessary that you use the Multimedia Manager for this.  If you prefer, you can manually name all of the media files,  and put them in the correct file path.  However, we strongly suggest using the multimedia manager as it minimizes the risk of confusion around names of files.

Before you use the multimedia manager, make sure that you have followed Step 1 for all files that you want to upload. For example, if your application will will have 15 images and 10 audio files, make sure that 25 separate file paths have been generated. If you are reusing images, make sure that they have the same file path. 

You can find the Multimedia Mangaer for your application on the main application settings page.  Scroll down and after clicking on "Multimedia" you will see the following:

You will use "Download ZIP" later to grab all of your files at once.  Below that there is a list of how many references are missing files. Click on the blue "Multimedia Reference Checker" button to upload files for all the references.

A new window will open that will look like this:

Again, you can see the number of missing files, and have the option to download a ZIP of all the multimedia files.  If your multimedia files are already correctly labeled, you can chose "Bulk Upload Multimedia" on the right side of the screen. This tool will help you to match all the files to the relevant references.  If the files are not yet labeled, you can click on either "Image References" or "Audio References" to individually upload files.

Let's try uploading an image file.  If you have not yet uploaded any files, after clicking on "Image References" you will see something like this:

The manager alerts you that each file is missing, and you will need to select the green button "Upload or select Image."  There is one row for each missing file.  After clicking on "Upload or select Image" you will see something like this:

Click on "Select Image" to find the appropriate file on your computer.  You can also enter a key word into the search box and try to find a relevant image in our shared images library (not yet operational, as of September 2012)

After you select a file, you will have the option to "Change File" if it was not the correct file or to "Upload the Image."  Before uploading, if you are willing to share the media file and it is open source, you can check the box next to "Share this media" and enter some relevant keywords.  This will allow future CommCare users to use the media file.

After you have uploaded the media file, your list will no longer have red "missing" tags, but green "found" tags.  It should look more like this:

As you can see, your options from the Multimedia Manager have now changed.  You can preview the file by hovering your cursor over "Preview Image," or clicking on "Preview Image" to open the file in a new window (you'll have to open a new window to hear an uploaded audio file!).  If you want to change the image, click on "Replace Image" and follow the same instructions as before.  

 

STEP 3: Download Your Media Files!

Once you have uploaded all of your media files you can easily download all of them in one click, with all the correct file names.  You can choose to download the Media ZIP from several locations on CommCareHQ:

  1. on the main application page under "Multimedia"
  2. in the Multimedia Manager main page (see above)
  3. in the release manager of your application after clicking "deploy"
  4. The file will be downloaded as a ZIP and you will have to unzip the file in order to use it.  By storing and transmitting it as a ZIP is a good idea so that you don't lose any of those media files!

Important Notes:

  • Other media types, such as video, are not currently supported by the Multimedia Manager.  These will have to be uploaded by adding a link to the file in the form, and then manually putting the correctly named file in the right place.
  • If you change the name of a question ID, the file-path will not automatically update.  You can keep using the old file-path and any media you had previously uploaded.  If you want to use the new question id in the file-path, you will need to delete the reference and add it again, then go back to the multimedia manager to upload the media file again.
  • The multimedia manager is not directly related to the release manager, it is related to the application in its current state.  This means that if you make a lot of changes to an application and download an old build, the multimedia manger will still reflect the current state of the application (most recent build).
  • No labels