How to Assign Spots Automatically

The default layout setting is auto. When users are not specified in the request, Eyeson automatically fills any available spots in the video stream with participants who have active cameras.

tip

To manipulate and set a specific layout, you'll need two key pieces of information:

• The access_key for the video call
• The user.id of participants you want to reposition

You can set these either when initiating a video call via the API or when adding participants to an active call. Alternatively, you can extract these values from a running call using EyesonJS or the observer.

Setting Auto Layout

In the example below, the first participant is positioned in the second spot of a layout named four. Learn more about layouts and the predefined layouts list here.

curl

export ACCESS_KEY=...
export USER_ID_1=...
curl -X POST \
  -d "layout=auto" \
  -d "name=four" \
  -d "users[]=" \
  -d "users[]=$USER_ID_1" \
  -d "users[]=" \
  -d "users[]=" \
  "https://api.eyeson.team/rooms/$ACCESS_KEY/layout"

node sdk

const accessKey = '...';
const user_id_1 = '...';
const eyeson = new Eyeson();
const user = await eyeson.getUser(accessKey);
await user.setLayout({
  layout: 'auto',
  name: 'four',
  users: ['', user_id_1, '', ''],
});

go sdk

user_id_1 := "..."
accessKey := "..."
userService, _ := eyeson.NewUserServiceFromAccessKey(accessKey)
userService.SetLayout(eyeson.Auto, &eyeson.SetLayoutOptions{
  LayoutName: "four",
  Users: []string{"", user_id_1, "", ""},
  ShowNames: true,
})

php sdk

$user_id_1 = '...';
$accessKey = '...';
$eyeson = new Eyeson();
$layout = $eyeson->layout($accessKey);
$layout->apply([
  'layout' => 'auto',
  'name' => 'four',
  'users' => ['', $user_id_1, '', '']
]);

Displaying Grid Background

For clarity, a background image is used, with the numbered video spots integrated into the design. This is optional.

curl

export ACCESS_KEY=...
curl -X POST \
  -d "url=https://docs.eyeson.com/img/examples/four_numbered.png" \
  -d "z-index=-1" \
  "https://api.eyeson.team/rooms/$ACCESS_KEY/layers"

node sdk

const accessKey = '...';
const eyeson = new Eyeson();
const user = await eyeson.getUser(accessKey);
await user.setLayer({
  url: 'https://docs.eyeson.com/img/examples/four_numbered.png',
  'z-index': -1,
});

go sdk

accessKey := "..."
userService, _ := eyeson.NewUserServiceFromAccessKey(accessKey)
userService.SetLayer("https://docs.eyeson.com/img/examples/four_numbered.png",
  eyeson.Background, nil)

php sdk

$accessKey = '...';
$eyeson = new Eyeson();
$layer = $eyeson->layer($accessKey);
$layer->apply([
  'url' => 'https://docs.eyeson.com/img/examples/four_numbered.png',
  'z-index' => -1
]);

Resulting Video Layout

If both API requests are successfully processed, the resulting video stream may be displayed as follows.

Layout Behaviour Explained

To demonstrate the behavior of the layout parameter, four additional participants are added to the video meeting. The image below displays the Prebuilt-UI with the applied settings. The video stream spots are occupied by participants with active cameras, even though the users[] parameters in the request did not specify any values.

info

If the meeting layout is configured with a limited number of visible participant spots (e.g., four), any additional users beyond this limit will not be displayed in the meeting interface. However, they can still participate via audio. To modify this behavior, refer to the voice_activation settings.