It’s no secret that over the past several months, we’ve been working on a file management add-on for ExpressionEngine. And today, we’re finally ready to show it to you!

Assets is composed of two parts: a module and a fieldtype. The module hosts a full-blown file manager, unlike anything you’ve ever seen on the web. Two different view modes, file name searching, subfolder support, folder/file drag-n-dropping, the list goes on. We set out to make this thing as easy to use for standard CRUD operations as your desktop OS’s file windows, and I think we’ve achieved just that.

The fieldtype enables you to associate files with your individual entries, or Matrix cells. You can choose to allow multiple file selections, or just one. You can also restrict it to specific EE upload directories if you want. And the selected files can either be displayed as thumbnails or in a list view.

Double-clicking on a file, either in the module or an Assets field, reveals a little modal window where you can edit the file’s metadata, including Title, Date, Caption, Author, and more. Changes you make here are global, so you don’t have to keep entering the same stuff over and over again. And all of that metadata, as well as other basic info about your files, are readily available for your templates, via Assets’ powerful template tags.

We’ve made it easy to convert File fields over to Assets fields – simply edit the field, and change its Field Type to Assets, and Assets will update your existing entries for you. And if you’re using Wygwam, we’ve even updated that to support Assets’ file browser for file selection. So you can finally have a consistent file browsing experience throughout your Publish page.

Assets is available now for just $55, so go check it out! We think you’ll agree that Assets is file management done right.