Drag and drop camera windows to sort views

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sypheXsquare
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 5:05 am

Drag and drop camera windows to sort views

Post by sypheXsquare »

Hi,

I would like to see drag-n-drop camera windows to sort views in the main dashboard showing all the webcams. I'm guessing maybe some kind of code rewrite to support HTML5 would make this possible.

Thanks!
Baylink
Posts: 338
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:19 am

Re: Drag and drop camera windows to sort views

Post by Baylink »

It's not clear whether you mean the Console, Montage, or Montage Review screens, but yeah, probably.

The customary response is "we look forward to your patch", but I'm not allowed to be that snarky yet, since I haven't submitted any of my own. :-)
sypheXsquare
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 5:05 am

Re: Drag and drop camera windows to sort views

Post by sypheXsquare »

That would be the Montage Review screen. What would it take to speed up development/implementation of this feature?
Baylink
Posts: 338
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:19 am

Re: Drag and drop camera windows to sort views

Post by Baylink »

I won't be that developer (yet, at least), but (as an analyst), let me ask you one more clarifying question:

What scope do you want these changes to have? Global across all cameras on the installation, only across the cameras in a given group, local to a given user's login (and group, combined, probably), or ephemeral just to a session.
sypheXsquare
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 5:05 am

Re: Drag and drop camera windows to sort views

Post by sypheXsquare »

Hi Baylink,

I need to make an apology. My initial request was to drag and drop camera windows, but I should have asked for dragging and reorganizing (and maybe auto-scale or a manual resolution slider at the bottom right corner of the video feed) the different camera feed windows in the Montage viewer. Global across all cameras would be ideal, but I'm not sure how easy it'd be. I only ask because given all the pretty cool demos I've seen the HTML5 spec do, it'd be nice to see some of the physics abilities incorporated into the current WebUI. I could PM you for more ideas if you'd like.
Baylink
Posts: 338
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:19 am

Re: Drag and drop camera windows to sort views

Post by Baylink »

[ EDIT: All of the below is written in terms Montage Review, though most of it is still applicable; I'd misread your comment, and am headed for bed. ]

No, this is as good a place as any; actual coders can drop in and kibitz about relative difficulty of implementation, on which I can only speculate.

The underlying task, as I perceive it, is "reorder a list of rows which denote monitors, used to paint camera views in the montage viewer, based on where the user drags a view outline to".

Put that way, it's obviously less complicated; the issues cluster around the scope of where that ordered list comes from, and the placement algorithm.

My speculation, informed, but not by looking at the code, is that it comes from the list of monitors as they're seen in the Console window, and as you may already know, they can be reordered there, though only by "Up" and "Down"; no Top, Bottom, or Drag is currently supported.

The problem is that that list is already potentially filtered by which cameras are in the Group you're allowed to see (both in User config and manually in the Console window interface), and it's not clear logically what to actually modify; the mechanics of converting a drag to a command call are likely trivial for a competent HTML coder, possibly even in terms of the current backend codebase.

Before we can modify the OrderedList object, we have to decide *which* OrderedList we're modifying the order of: AllMonitors, GroupMonitors, UserGroupMonitors, or something else -- and if the thing we want to modify is a View, then we need to add a place to store that order.

It would also be nice to be able to stow the relative sizes of a montage review view when they've been changed.

As I say, I don't expect either part would be horribly complicated for someone with the proper programming competency; that just isn't me.

This is all complicated by the fact that in non-mocord mode, most panes are "No Signal", much of the time -- I have a personal ticket open to add the Monitor Name to such panes... and maybe back-seek to the last recorded frame for that monitor, and put it up 50% whited out, if that's not critically difficult...
sypheXsquare
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 5:05 am

Re: Drag and drop camera windows to sort views

Post by sypheXsquare »

Baylink, thanks for the technical rundown and yes you're definitely on track. I'm guessing the ZM project isn't quite at the level I'd like it to be, so I went ahead and donated.

Out of curiosity, do you happen to know if anyone with ZoneMinder sought someone, whether it be through GSoC or another way, to work on a potential redesign of the interface or the codebase for hyperacceleration or high performance? I keep thinking either that or maybe a commercial version of the app (like for the iPhone) could probably really help things take off.

Regardless, ZM rocks and thanks for the app!
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