Local layout control

[bradleonard]

It would be great if there were the ability to create layouts in UI3 that are independent of Blue Iris. The ability to both resize and arrange camera streams would be excellent.

[bp2008]

Blue Iris's streaming API does offer a layout customization capability that was added nearly 2 years ago (around BI 5.5.0) that UI3 does not utilize. The "&cams=" argument.

Dynamic group layout options

When requesting a group stream that’s configured for dynamic layout (no forced aspect ratio), you may customize the display as follows:

&h=height if the layout does not force a specific height &w=width use with height if the layout does not force a specific aspect ratio &cams=camlist a comma-delimited list of camera short names (e.g., cam1,cam2,cam3) &flags=x 1=names 2=borders 4=show hidden 8=hide disabled 16=hide inactive &mask=x bits corresponding to the flags to adjust

I would not be able to resize individual cameras, but I would be able to rearrange them or suppress them from the group view by omitting their names from the &cams= argument. Thus far, I have not implemented such a feature because it would be complex to implement in a user-friendly way and I don't see much value in it. It would lack the power of actually just creating a new group in Blue Iris's local console (where cameras can also be resized, clustered into sub-groups, etc). Further limiting the usefulness, any customizations you made in UI3 would be limited to that one browser, not available in other client devices, apps, or browsers.

[bradleonard]

I am on BI version 5.3.x contemplating an update to get the Dynamic Group layout feature you are talking about. I don't see the issue with limiting features per browser that you mentioned last. That is something that I would be willing to live with.

My main issue is that under certain conditions the UI3 layout seems to stack cameras narrow and vertically which reduces image size and leaves large amounts of unused real estate. If it was possible for UI3 to re-flow the camera layout with respect to available space in the browser, I would be happy.

[bp2008]

In the older Blue Iris versions, you can only affect the group layout very clumsily by editing the group frame size in Blue Iris's local console, group settings panel.

If you update Blue Iris, you will get the dynamic group layout feature. These screenshots demonstrate roughly how it works:

You'll be able to right click the video in UI3 and choose Group Settings to get this dialog where you can change the resolution limit and lock in an aspect ratio if you like, as well as toggle camera names, borders, etc.

[bp2008]

Also as noted earlier, in newer Blue Iris you have much more power to customize group layouts via the new "Edit Layout" mode in the top bar of Blue Iris's local console. See the icon with a pencil in it here in the top bar:

Most of the group layout controls are only in the local console (not in UI3 or mobile apps) but the modified layout does work in UI3 and the mobile apps.