02c - Asset kinds and visibility

Info: This article is work in progress and subject to change.

The Workflow Assistant adapts to whatever the user has selected. A field that makes sense for a video does not appear when the user has selected a Word document; a button that operates on a collection does not show up when no asset is selected. The mechanism behind that adaptation is the asset kind — and every component you place on a panel has a small, important checklist that controls when it appears.

This article covers what an asset kind is, how the visibility checklist works, and how to use the special No asset option to keep guidance, navigation, and notifications visible at all times.

If you have not read 02a — Panel anatomy and 02b — Component types yet, read those first. This page builds on both.

The visibility checklist in the Configurator’s options panel, showing the eleven asset-kind checkboxes plus “No asset”, with three helper buttons labelled “Select all”, “Clear”, and “Invert”

What an asset kind is

In WoodWing Assets, every asset has a kind — a coarse category that describes what the file fundamentally is. An asset kind is not the same as the file extension; it is the grouping Assets uses internally for things like icons, previews, and behaviour. Two .mov files and an .mp4 are all the video kind. A .docx and a .pages file are both the document kind.

The Workflow Assistant uses the same kinds. When you configure a component, you tick the kinds it applies to. When the user selects one or more assets in Assets, the Workflow Assistant looks at the kinds in the selection and shows components whose kind list includes them.

The available kinds

Every component’s visibility checklist offers the same eleven asset kinds plus the special No asset option:

Note: The list of kinds is fixed by Assets. You cannot define your own kind. If your workflow needs a finer split — for example “marketing photographs” versus “product photographs” — use a metadata field for that distinction and use a Lucene Disable condition to filter, rather than trying to invent a new kind.

How the visibility checklist works

Every Field, Action, and Notification has the same checklist. You tick the kinds the component should appear for; you leave the others empty. When the user makes a selection in Assets, the Workflow Assistant compares the kinds present in the selection to the checklist on each component:

• If the selection contains only kinds that the component does not list, the component is hidden
• If the selection contains at least one kind that the component lists, the component appears
• If the user has selected nothing and the component has No asset ticked, the component appears

That is the entire rule. There are no priorities, no tie-breakers, and no per-row exceptions. The same checklist applies whether the component is a Field, an Action, or a Notification.

Tip: When a user selects several assets at once — for example two images and a video — every component that has Image or Video ticked will appear. The checklist is permissive: any matching kind shows the component. If you only want a component to appear when the selection is exclusively video, use a Disable condition (a Lucene query) on top, covered in 02d — How conditions work.

The “No asset” option

The No asset option is the most often-overlooked choice on the visibility checklist. It controls whether the component appears when the user has selected nothing at all. Three common cases need it ticked:

• Notifications that orient the user — for example, a Notification that says “Select an asset to begin” should be visible when no asset is selected. Without No asset ticked, the user sees an empty panel and has nothing to read
• Navigation buttons — a button that takes the user to a folder or runs a query does not need an asset to be selected. Tick No asset so the button is reachable from a fresh panel
• Always-on guidance — a section header or an Info notification that introduces the workflow

Conversely, leave No asset unticked when a component depends on a selection. A Date field that reads metadata from the selected asset has nothing to read when nothing is selected, so leaving No asset unticked is correct.

The helper buttons: Select all, Clear, Invert

The visibility checklist has three small helper buttons above the checkboxes:

Tip: A common shortcut is to click Select all and then untick the one or two kinds you do not want, instead of ticking every relevant kind one by one. Same outcome, fewer clicks.

Quick Start: a duration field that only appears for video and audio

The fastest way to internalise the checklist is to build something with it. Use the steps below in any panel.

Step 1. In the Configurator, open or create a panel and add a tab and a section. Inside the section add a row and place a Formatted field in the row.

Step 2. In the field’s options, set the Display name to Duration and the Field name to duration (the technical metadata field for asset duration). Both are required.

Step 3. Find the Applies to visibility checklist in the component’s options panel. By default, every kind is ticked.

Step 4. Click Clear to untick everything.

Step 5. Tick only Video and Audio. Leave No asset unticked, because there is no duration to read when nothing is selected.

Step 6. Save the panel and switch to a separate browser tab where you are signed in to Assets as a test user. Select a video — the Duration field appears. Select an image — the field disappears. Select nothing — the field is hidden.

Step 7. Repeat with a multi-asset selection: pick a video and an image at the same time. The Duration field appears, because at least one of the selected assets matches the checklist. This is the permissive behaviour described above.

Tip: When a component does not appear when you expect it to, the visibility checklist is the first thing to check. Open the component’s options panel, look at the ticks, and compare them to what the test user has selected. Nine times out of ten, the answer is right there.

Common patterns

A few habits of mind, drawn from real panels:

• Default to Select all, then untick. Most components apply to most kinds. Starting from “all ticked” and unticking the exceptions is faster and safer than starting from empty and ticking inclusively
• Always tick No asset for guidance. Anything whose job is to tell the user what to do — Notifications, navigation buttons, section-introducing components — needs No asset ticked, otherwise the user does not see it before they select
• Never tick No asset for editable fields. A Field that writes to an asset’s metadata has nothing to write to when nothing is selected. Leaving No asset unticked prevents a confusing empty editable field
• Use the visibility checklist for kind, the Disable condition for everything else. If your filter is about the kind of asset, the checklist is the right tool. If it is about the content of the asset’s metadata — status, region, owner, anything stored as a value — that is a Disable condition’s job. The two work together; the next page covers conditions

Where to go from here

• 02d — How conditions work: Lucene and regex in plain language — for filters that depend on metadata values rather than asset kinds
• 06a — Showing components for the right asset kinds — the reference treatment of this topic for when you need to look up a behaviour rather than learn the concept
• 05c — Notifications reference — Notifications make heavy use of No asset combined with Lucene display conditions; the reference page has worked patterns

Revisions

• 8 May 2026: First publication of the manual