Install and configure Experience Manager desktop app v1.10 install-and-configure-aem-desktop-app

Using the Experience Manager desktop app, the assets within Experience Manager are easily accessible on your local desktop and can be used in any desktop applications. Assets can be revealed in Mac Finder or Windows Explorer, edited in desktop apps, and changes are saved back to Experience Manager, creating a new version upon upload.

This integration enables different roles to manage assets centrally within the organization in Assets, access them in Creative Cloud and other applications, and easily comply with various standards, including branding.

To use the Experience Manager desktop app,

System requirements, prerequisites, and download links system-requirements-prerequisites-and-download-links

For detailed information, see the Experience Manager desktop app release notes.

Install and connect the app to Experience Manager server install-and-connect-aem-desktop-app-to-aem-server

For details, see Install and connect Experience Manager desktop app to Experience Manager server.

File handling file-handling

When changing a file from a network share location mounted by the desktop app, files are saved to that location in two phases. In the first phase, a file is saved locally. A user can save the file and continue working on the file, without waiting for the transfer to complete.

In the second phase, the desktop app uploads the updated file to the Experience Manager server after a predefined delay (for example, 30s). This operation occurs in the background. Use the View Asset Status option to view the status of the upload operation.

Connect to an Experience Manager instance behind a Dispatcher connect-to-an-aem-instance-behind-a-dispatcher

The copy and move methods in the Assets API require the following additional headers to be passed to Experience Manager:

Experience Manager desktop connects to Experience Manager using a URL that includes the default port. Therefore, the virtualhosts setting in the Dispatcher configuration should include the default port number. For more information around virtualhosts configuration, see identify virtual hosts.

For additional information on configuring the Dispatcher to pass through these additional headers, see Specifying the HTTP Headers.

Proxy support proxy-support

The Experience Manager desktop app uses the system’s pre-defined proxy to connect to the Internet over HTTPS. The app can only connect using a network proxy that does not require extra authentication.

If you configure or modify proxy server settings for Windows (Internet Options > LAN Settings), restart the Experience Manager desktop app for the changes to take effect.

If your proxy requires authentication, the IT team can allow the Experience Manager Assets URL in the proxy server settings to allow the application traffic to pass through.

Customize the Asset Info dialog customize-the-asset-info-dialog

You can customize the Asset Info dialog by overlaying one or both of these components:

Which component is overlaid depends on the nature of the customization. To change which components are displayed as part of the Asset Info dialog, overlay the Granite user interface page. To change the HTML, CSS, or JavaScript content of the dialog, overlay the HTL component.

Manage cache manage-cache

On Windows, the cache is at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Adobe\AssetsCompanion\Cache\, where is an encoded version of the Experience Manager host configured in the desktop app. For example, http://localhost:4502 appears as http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%3A4502%2F.

On macOS X, a similar directory is at ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.adobe.aem.desktop/cache.

In-app option to manage cache in-app-option-to-manage-cache

You can control the amount of disk space made available for local caching purposes. The artifacts from the Assets server are cached locally for a smoother experience. You can change the defaults to suit your requirements. Also, you can clear the cache to fetch all assets afresh. To set the desired options, click the application’s icon and click Advanced > Manage Cache. ****

Change location of cache on Windows change-location-of-cache-on-windows

The default location of the cache for the Experience Manager desktop app is as follows:

The EncodedAEMEndpoint is the app’s configured Experience Manager endpoint URL. The value is an encoded version of the targeting URL of the Experience Manager server. For example, if the application is targeting http://localhost:4502, the directory name is http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%3A4502. The Windows path to the cache directory in this example is %LocalAppData%\Adobe\AssetsCompanion\Cache\http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%3A4502.

To point the application to a different folder or a different drive, edit the application’s configuration file.