Several media management modules are available for your Drupal 7 website that improve on the default media handling methods, and include the following modules:
This document lists several of the positives and negatives related to each of these media management modules.
Media module
Positives:
- Offers easy installation (Enable one module for basic functionality)
- Extends existing functionality (replace field type media widgets with Media file selector)
- Displays media uploaded using the default Drupal 7 method
- Works with the Wysiwyg module
Negatives:
- No search capabilities in media library (Browse only)
- No straightforward way to enable embedded Internet resource links (Enable additional module, and then find and download required modules)
Scald module
Positives:
- Creates a separate entity type for media, which separates media management from other content management
- Provides an interface that "bolts-on" to the side of the content entry page, encouraging the concept that all media content is available from the library
- Allows you to search the media library using multiple fields
- Sorts the media library results
- Offers drag-and-drop functionality from the media library to supported fields and to plain-text texture fields (Wysiwyg module optional)
- Integrates with the Features module
Negatives:
- Creates a separate entity type for media, which limits interactions with existing content types
- Provides an interface that "bolts-on" to the side of the content entry page, which does not represent standard Drupal design and doesn't integrate into the page flow
- Offers limited fields that support media from the library — Textarea (for example, Body) fields and Atom reference fields (available from the included Atom Reference module)
- Supports only the media types included with the module
Asset module
Positives:
- Creates a separate entity type for media, which separates media management from other content management
- Provides a sidebar interface as a separate UI submodule
- Provides an interface that "bolts-on" to the side of the content entry page, encouraging the concept that all media content is available from the interface
- Allows you to search the media library either by using multiple fields or by filtering the list of available media
- Creates single searches across multiple media types using a multi-select list
- Offers drag-and-drop functionality from the library to supported fields
- Provides additional display elements for media entity types
- Includes a Free HTML media type that you can use to store frequently used markup
Negatives:
- Creates a separate entity type for media, which limits interactions with existing content types
- Provides an interface that "bolts-on" to the side of the content entry page, which does not represent standard Drupal design and doesn't integrate into the page flow
- Requires the Entity module and CKeditor-enabled texture fields
- Is still under development