Adding Remote Asset Picker to Page Editor Siderail in AEM 6.5 | Community
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theNAFIZ
theNAFIZ
Level 1
June 22, 2026
Question

Adding Remote Asset Picker to Page Editor Siderail in AEM 6.5

  • June 22, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 45 views

I have integrated Remote Assets (Next Gen Dynamic Media) in my AEM 6.5 project, and it's working fine with the Core Components Image v3 image picker — I can browse and select remote assets directly in the component dialog.

Now I want to surface the Remote Asset picker in the Page Editor siderail (the Assets tab on the left rail), so authors can drag remote assets onto the page the same way they drag local DAM assets.

How can I enable/configure the remote asset picker in the Editor siderail?

Current State

  • Remote DM (Next Gen) integration is configured via the Cloud Service / IMS setup and asset selector.
  • Image v3 component dialog already shows the remote asset picker correctly.
  • The default siderail Assets tab still only shows local DAM assets, not the remote repository.

Details I'm looking for

  1. Is the siderail Assets tab even capable of pointing to the remote asset repository?
  2. If it's possible, How can I configure it?

Any guidance, sample configuration, or confirmation of supported vs. unsupported behavior in AEM 6.5 would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

2 replies

ChitraMadan
Community Advisor
ChitraMadanCommunity Advisor
Community Advisor
June 22, 2026

Hi ​@theNAFIZ,

The siderail drag-and-drop flow for remote assets is not a supported OOTB feature in AEM 6.5.

This would mean, writing your custom implementation for side rail that calls the Remote Asset Picker's backend/servlet and a custom drop handler that mimics what Image V3’s dialog widget does when an asset is selected.

There is another option for using Connected Assets — it is a different, older feature, and it has its own limitations and is used just for images.

Given you already have Remote Assets working for Image v3, layering Connected Assets on top means running two parallel remote-asset integrations with different mount mechanisms, different permission models, and different format support. That could be an overhead — two implementations to monitor and maintain.

If drag-and-drop in the siderail is a hard requirement and your assets are images-only, Connected Assets gets you there without custom code. If you need non-image formats, proper metadata, or want a single integration, you need to either accept dialog-only remote picking, or building a custom siderail extension.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Chitra

theNAFIZ
theNAFIZAuthor
Level 1
June 22, 2026

Hi ​@ChitraMadan ,

Thanks for the clarification — that helps a lot.

It seems a custom siderail extension is the way forward. I’ll explore that approach alongside the Remote Asset Picker and Image V3 behavior.

If you have any references, sample approaches or implementation patterns that could help guide this (even at a high level), I’d really appreciate it. Anything that could help accelerate development or avoid common pitfalls would be great.

Thanks again for the insights!

 - Nafiz

ChitraMadan
Community Advisor
ChitraMadanCommunity Advisor
Community Advisor
June 22, 2026

Hi ​@theNAFIZ,

Please find below the high level steps:

  • Firstly, you will have to reverse engineer how the current functionality works for the Image V3 core component - what it is exactly doing on dropping the asset, check the component's HTL/Sling Model to see how it detects that this is a remote ref, not a local DAM path and routes rendering accordingly - This needs to be replicated for your custom solution.
  • The Image v3 dialog's Remote picker calls a backend to list and search assets. Use browser dev tools to capture the actual request being made. This becomes the data source for your siderail panel.
  • You’ll have to make UI changes to add another tab.
  • Core Components' drop-target JS currently expects a local DAM path on drop  You'll need to extend or override this.

This is what I can think of on a high level.

 

Thanks,

Chitra 

TarunKumar
Community Advisor
TarunKumarCommunity Advisor
Community Advisor
June 22, 2026

Hi ​@theNAFIZ ,
 

Please follow the walkthrough of the usage of assets in side rail

 

  1. Navigate to the Assets interface on the remote deployment by accessing Assets > Files from Experience Manager workspace. Alternatively, access https://[assets_servername_ams]:[port]/assets.html/content/dam in a browser. Upload the assets of your choice.

  2. On the Sites deployment, in the profile activator in the upper-right corner, click Impersonate as. Specify the user name, select the option provided, and click OK.

  3. Open a Sites page and edit the page.

    Click Toggle Side Panel on upper-left corner of the page.

  4. Open the Assets tab (Remote Content Finder) and click Log in to Connected Assets.

  5. Specify the credentials to log on to Connected Assets. This user has authoring permissions on both the Experience Manager deployments.

  6. Search for the asset that you added to DAM. The remote assets are displayed in the left panel. Filter for images or documents and further filter for types of supported documents. Drag the images on an Image component and documents on a Download component.

    The fetched assets are read-only on the local Sites deployment. You can still use the options provided by your Sites components to edit the fetched asset. 

 

For more details follow below link:
https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/assets/admin/use-assets-across-connected-assets-instances

 

-Tarun

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