Brandkit 2 Important Changes

Asset names

Your original filename is saved as the Asset name on initial upload.

Then, when you edit the Asset Name:

• Brandkit 1 - the displayed name is uses the original filename unless you add a Caption, in which case the Caption is used as the display name. However the downloaded filename remains the original filename.

• Brandkit 2 - the Caption field no longer exists. Instead you can edit the Asset Name, the displayed name AND the downloaded filename is changed. In addition we append the Asset ID to the downloaded filename.

Licence and Vault

Vault is a new construct in Brandkit 2

• In Brandkit 1, Licences do two jobs, declare Licence conditions that apply to an Asset AND act as a psuedo folder for access permissions (via User Roles). An Asset must have only one Licence. In addition it was possible for an Asset to have No Licence set.

• In Brandkit 2, we’ve split Licence into two separate constructs Licence (declares Licence conditions only) and Vault (acts as a psuedo folder for access permissions (via User Roles). An Asset must belong to one Licence and One Vault. In Brandkit 2 a Licence MUST be set and so all new Assets are automatically placed in the Royalty Free Licence by default. This default behaviour can be set in settings, if or example you want the default to be a more restrictive Licence. Same applies to Vaults. Default is the Public Vault, but you may prefer the default to be the Private Vault.

CMS Access

• Brandkit 1 - no CMS access for customers. Brandkit staff must make CMS changes for you.

• Brandkit 2 - Customer Admin user roles now have direct CMS access and can make design and copy changes directly in real-time. This includes access to HTML and CSS. Javascript access is still limited to Brandkit Staff for plaform security purposes and you will need ti engage Brandkit staff for the addition of custom Javascript code. That said Brandkit staff are still available to do this work for you and typically will do initial setup/customisation of your Brand Portal.

Note: Customisation only applies to the Portal, the Admin interface is NOT customisable.

Account Settings

• Brandkit 1 - limited access to Account Settings. Brandkit staff would make most configuration adjustments for you.

• Brandkit 2 - Customer Admin Roles now have direct access to 99% of Account settings.

Email

• Brandkit 1 - system emails were sent as HTML emails which could be partially customised with a logo, header image, and CSS.

• Brandkit 2 - system email are now sent in plain text with no customisation possible. This is to aid deliverability, performance and reduce Co2 emitted from email(which can be significant). See this post explaining the decision

Watermarks

• Brandkit 1 - it was possible to upload a especially prepared transparent white logo on a presized transparent canvas for each customer account to use as a Watermark on larger preview images to prevent screen-shotting and right-click save as actions by users (who may not have had download rights).

• Brandkit 2 - to aid performance and make setup easier - we have replaced the uploaded logo with a text based wallpaper effect, which impinges on the image less, but still makes screen-shotting unlikely. We have also reduced the natural size of large previews to 1280px on it’s longest side and disabled right-click actions on these previews. Accounts can now set a custom copyright statement up to 30 characters in length to display as a watermark wallpaper to protect large preview size images. These are only applied to image based previews (i.e. .jpg,.png,.webp) - not to video, pdfs, svgs, etc.

WebP Thumbs and Previews

• Brandkit 1 - we generated .jpg and ,png thumbnails for most Asset Types (not Video, Audio and some other types).

• Brandkit 2 - we now generate .webp thumbs and previews which are smaller files, more performant and now supported by all major browsers and the browsers we officially support.

PDFs

• Brandkit 1 - PDF’s generated image based previews in the Portal

• Brandkit 2 - PDF’s now generate a readable and scrollable PDF in the Portal but only when a user has download rights, otherwise an Image preview is shown (e.g. for user that can view but miust request).

Posts

• Brandkit 1 - Posts were a separate module divorced from the Asset Library intended for creating a Blog.

• Brandkit 2 - Posts are now regarded as Assets, have the same metadata and tags as file based Assets and are searchable alongside file based assets. The intention is that you can create Text based assets written natively in Brandkit. These Posts can be written in Brandkit 2 natice Markdown editor or in raw HTML or plain text. They are also downloadable as HTML files for easy transport to other systems.

Brands module

• Brandkit 1 - There was a separate module for create each Brand, uploading Brand Guidelines and creating a Brand Page along with Navigation. You could also create an FAQs style HTML guidelines on the Brands page,

• Brandkit 2 - this separate module was deemed unnecessary and has been deleted. Brand Guidelines are now uploaded as a normal Asset (which supports versioning). Brands can be added as Brand Filter (directly in settings) and as a Tag for Search. A Brand Page can be simply created in the CMS and either embed a PDF uploaded as a CMS static file or an image embedded a linked to the downloadable Brand Guidelines Asset page. For HTML based Brand Guidelines - these can be simply built in the CMS and customise your design and interaction via your Theme file.

Logos

• Brandkit 1 - The same logo is used for desktop and mobile views

• Brandkit 2 - there are now two separate logos used for desktop and mobile (usually a square icon to account for the limited width available). We recommend using your (usually) square social media icon or an enlarged version of your web favicon.

2FA authentication

• Brandkit 1 - Not available.

• Brandkit 2 - Available as an option for users - user elects to adopt Two Factor Authentication (2FA) in their user profile. Currently not enforceable by Account Admins.

SSO Single sign-on

• Brandkit 1 - SSO with general open or public Microsoft and Google credentials was possible in addition to staff login via Azure Active Directory and Auth0 services.

• Brandkit 2 - If Azure AD (now called Entra iD) is activated its no longer possible to also have general open/public Microsoft authentication available. Azure AD no longer requires the customer to select Brandkit in the Azure marketplace - the setup is simpler. Brandkit 2 also offers Two-factor Authentication as an option for users and also Passwordless login for previously registered users.

Search Results/Asset Grid Pagination

• Brandkit 1 - Assets grid featured continuous scroll with a Display More button every 100 Assets in the grid.

• Brandkit 2 - Assets grid now features pagination instead of continuous scroll. This has the benefits of:

  • You can now set the number of Assets to appear in each page/grid (Brand Portal only) via the CMS.
  • The size of the search results is now more obvious because we show page count in the pagination navigation.
  • You can now jump to a page number
  • Selection of a all assets in a Search Result is easier (although can still be improved)
  • Performance is improved.

Adding/Uploading Assets

• In Brandkit 1 we used a 3rd party plugin to select files in your local computer or online storage services.

• In Brandkit 2 we have built our own direct uploader for files, plus new uploaders for Posts, External Links, and Syndications. You can also now select the last batch of files uploaded, via a pop up message after upload, and via a list of previous Uploads (in the Assets sub menu) for easier selection for batch editing.

Public Uploads is now Contributions

• In Brandkit 1 external users who were not Admins coukd upload content via a Public Upload page.

• In Brandkit 2, this has now been renamed to Contributions, and the work-flow has been modified so that you (a) have a separate customisable Terms of Contribution, (b) users can use simple descriptions and (c) Received contributions are shown in a separate list for Admins for curation before being added as Assets.

URL’s embedded elsewhere

• Some customers have copied Brandkit 1 URLs to certain pages, or search results in their Brandkit portal and embedded these in other websites, emails, or even in printed documents in some cases.

• These links may or may not work in Brandkit 2. We have taken steps to redirect some URLs automatically, but the URL structure has changed in many cases, and customer may have to modify these URLs, or optionally add a redirect in the Brandkit 2 CMS.

Examples

• A Portal page now has the following URL syntax. “https://yourdomain/pagename” (previously this was “https://yourdomain/pages/pagename”)

• A saved tag search has the following syntax “https://yourdomain/?tag=tag1” or “https://yourdomain/assets/?tag=tag1” (depending on whether you have search on the home page or the more traditional /assets page. (previously the syntax was “https://yourdomain/assets/?tags=tag1” )

• A saved multi tag search has the following syntax “https://yourdomain/?tag=tag1&tag=tag2” or “https://yourdomain/assets/?tag=tag1&tag2” (depending on whether you have search on the home page or the more traditional /assets page. (previously the syntax was “https://yourdomain/assets/?tags=tag1,tag2” )

• etc

If you do have URLs hard coded or printed somewhere that is hard to change, you can now add a Redirect for each URL in Settings > CMS > Redirections to point your old URL to the new URL path.

If in doubt, please contact Brandkit Support.

Advanced Search

• In Brandkit 1 - didn’t exist.

• In Brandkit 2 - you can now search explicitly in specific metadata fields and tags. This solves the problem with false positive search results that you get when searching using a standard meta search. Note that meta search searches for the search phrase across several fields (Tags,Asset Name, Description, Additional reference).

Video

• In Brandkit 1 we generate a 720p (1280 x 720px) websized .mp4 video when you upload a video (provided it is not too large). This preview image is made available for download as well.

• in Brandkit 2 we still generate a 720p .mp4 preview - however this is not offered as a download. This is because we are optimizing the preview video for preview performance which may involve changing frame rate and bit rate to optimize for performance. This means only the uploaded file is available for download. We therefore recommend in most cases you should be uploading optimized video .mp4 ahead of formats like Quictkime.mov files.