When we released our open source Digital Asset Management System, Razuna, in the Summer of 2008, we hoped that our experience in making software tools and outlook for the need of managing videos and images may benefit organizations and small teams around the world.
The release of Razuna has been taken up very well, and we see more and more organizations taking to our open source Digital Asset Management. Many have come forward and offered to contribute to Razuna. This in turn, has been motivating us to even return back more to the community. Thus, we are very happy with the recent enhancements and upcoming features and add-ons to Razuna. Here are some of the things to come;
Razuna Desktop Application
We want you to work with Razuna as easy as possible. By the nature of a web application, your client for Razuna is obviously a web browser. Under certain situations, like uploading a large amount of data, a web browser can be inconvenient. In the last couple of weeks we have undertaken some efforts to have a Desktop applications built that will allow exactly that. With it, you will be able to simple drag and drop any asset from your Desktop system to the Razuna Desktop Application and it will be automatically uploaded. The application will run on MacOS X, Windows and Linux. Best of all, the Razuna Desktop Application will run with the Hosted Razuna DAM Platform and with the self hosted DAM version.
The effort of bringing you the Desktop Application is a community effort by the Razuna Community member Bruce Lane who has already contributed a French translation for Razuna.
Razuna Web Services (API) / Plugin’s for CMS / PHP
In order to bring assets from Razuna to your system (CMS, ERP, etc.) you can use the Razuna API. With the Developer API you can interact with assets stored in Razuna. Getting the folder structure, searching for assets, retrieving assets, showing them and further interaction is all done over a open web service interface. We steadily improve the API and we just added the possibility to add asset remotely. Thus allowing you, to create your own “Razuna Remote Client”.
For those who feel encouraged to include Razuna into their CMS or write a plugin, should get in touch with us or read the current Wiki pages on the Razuna API. The Razuna API is currently available for the Hosted Razuna DAM Platform and in the current 1.2 development release.
Razuna 1.2
The current Road Map for Razuna 1.2 brings a lot of new features to Razuna. There will be over 80 changes, including bug fixes, enhancements and new features. Here is a short list of features for the upcoming 1.2 release;
Progress bar for uploading, PDF, PSD, EPS and AI files will have a thumbnail preview and can be converted to other formats online, Cooliris plugin support, a Explorer-Tree for Folder Navigation (I know you have been waiting for this), a brand new initial folder view (showing you all assets in one convenient view, with a option to include assets from subfolders!), faster loading time (performance increase by 40%), Version control for all assets and sharing of Folders and Collections to the web.
All in all, the enhancements for Razuna in the upcoming version will help you to work even more efficiently with your Digital Assets. As it looks now, we will be able to bring you Razuna 1.2 by the end of Mai 2009.
We are all very excited about all the new tools, features and enhancements that are coming to Razuna and the whole Razuna Eco-System. At this point, we would like to thank all the supporters and the people who spread the word on Razuna.
Encouraged to see what all the buzz on Razuna is about? Sign up for an account on the Hosted Razuna DAM Platform or download your Razuna copy today! Available as a Standalone, WAR or as a Virtual Image, the Razuna DAM can be deployed within minutes.
On April 1st and 2nd 2009, the 
