opentok-layout-js
Automatic layout of video elements (publisher and subscriber) minimising white-space for the OpenTok on WebRTC API. This is intended for use with the OpenTok on WebRTC JS API but can be used for any case where you're trying to fit multiple videos into a box. It could possibly be used for Photos as well.
It automatically detects when an element is added or when the container is resized and it adjusts the layout of its' children accordingly. It can also arrange items with different aspect ratios and maintain their aspect ratios without cropping.
The difference between this layout algorithm and other similar photo layout algorithms, such as the Flickr Justified Layout algorithm, is that this has a constrained height as well as width. The assumption is that when you're viewing video you want all videos to be visible at the same time. You don't want to scroll down to continue to view the list. So this algorithm fits everything inside a box and tries to minimize the amount of whitespace.
Demo
Demo of layout container in action
Dependencies
The OpenTok for WebRTC JS API is required.
Usage
Call initLayoutContainer
and pass it the element you want it to layout. It works best if you set the position of the element to be absolute or relative. You will then be returned an object with a layout method that you can call to layout the elements inside.
const initLayoutContainer = require('opentok-layout-js');
const options = {
maxRatio: 3/2,
minRatio: 9/16,
fixedRatio: false,
bigClass: "OT_big",
bigPercentage: 0.8
bigFixedRatio: false,
bigMaxRatio: 3/2,
bigMinRatio: 9/16,
bigFirst: true,
animate: true
};
const layout = initLayoutContainer(document.getElementById("layout"), options);
layout.layout();
The other way to use this library is to just use the getLayout()
method to get the layout data and position the elements yourself. getLayout()
takes an array of objects with a width and height property along with a big
property indicating whether it should be treated as a bigger element. eg.
const layout = initLayoutContainer(options);
const boxes = layout.getLayout([
{
width: 640,
height: 480,
big: false
}
]);
It will return an array of boxes which will be in the same order as the array you passed in. Each element in the array will look like:
{
width,
height,
top,
left
}
Examples
Cropping videos to fit best.
In this example we crop the videos to take up the most space in the window.
initLayoutContainer(document.getElementById("layout"));
Respecting different aspect ratios
In this example we are respecting the native aspect ratio of multiple different videos.
initLayoutContainer(document.getElementById("layout"), {
fixedRatio: true
});
Some big videos
This example has 2 big videos focused and the other 4 small.
Some big respecting aspect ratios
This example has 2 big and we're respecting the native aspect ratios of the different videos.
Using in an OpenTok Application
In an OpenTok application you would do something like:
<html>
<head>
<title>Layout Container Example</title>
<script src="http://static.opentok.com/v2/js/opentok.min.js"></script>
<script src="js/opentok-layout.min.js"></script>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
#layoutContainer {
width: 320px;
height: 240px;
background-color: #DDD;
position:relative;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="layoutContainer">
<div id="publisherContainer"></div>
</div>
</body>
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
var layoutContainer = document.getElementById("layoutContainer");
var layout = initLayoutContainer(layoutContainer).layout;
var sessionId = "mySessionId";
var token = "myToken";
var apiKey = "myAPIKey";
var session = OT.initSession(sessionId);
session.on("streamCreated", function(event){
session.subscribe(event.stream, "layoutContainer", {
insertMode: "append"
});
layout();
}).connect(apiKey, token, function (err) {
if (!err) {
session.publish("publisherContainer");
layout();
}
});
</script>
</html>
Now any time you call the layout
method the layout container will automatically be positioned and sized so that it minimises the white-space within the box given.
Resizing the Window
You want to call the layout method any time the size of the layout container changes. If the size of the container varies depending on the size of the window you may need to do:
var resizeTimeout;
window.onresize = function() {
clearTimeout(resizeTimeout);
resizeTimeout = setTimeout(function () {
layout();
}, 20);
};
This throttles calling layout so that it's not called over an over again when you're resizing the window.
Animations
If you want to animate things you can use CSS3 transitions on the children. eg.
.container > * {
transition-property: all;
transition-duration: 0.5s;
}
This library adds an ot-layout
className to elements once they have been layed out. This allows you to specify an initial transition for new elements being added like so:
.container > * {
width: 0;
height: 0;
opacity: 0;
}
.container > *.ot-layout {
opacity: 1;
}
This will make the elements be size 0x0 with opacity 0 when they are first added. Then when they have the ot-layout
className added they will grow to the right size and fade in. You can see this effect in the demo.
Then if you want elements to fade out you can remove the ot-layout
class from them before removing them from the DOM. Like so:
session.on('streamDestroyed', (event) => {
event.preventDefault();
session.getSubscribersForStream(event.stream).forEach((subscriber) => {
subscriber.element.classList.remove('ot-layout');
setTimeout(() => {
subscriber.destroy();
layout();
}, 200);
});
});
Big Elements
If you add the bigClass
to elements in the layout container they will be treated differently. They are essentially in a layout container of their own which takes up bigPercentage
of the space and has it's own settings for ratios (bigMaxRatio
, bigMinRatio
, bigFixedRatio
).
You can have multiple elements which are treated as big elements which allow you to have all kinds of different layouts.
To see how this works try the demo and double click on elements.
Padding, Margins and Borders
The Layout Container will take into account the padding, margins and borders on it's children. If you want spacing between elements simply give them a margin or padding and they will be spaced accordingly.