How does the TED Talk home page organise the grid of videos?

user_191090 0
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I've been trying to work out exactly how the TED Talk homepage works. Leaving aside all the animation rubbish, I find the way that the boxes are organised is really fascinating.

At first glance it looks like the jQuery masonry plugin, bu it quickly becomes clear that it tends to create several right angle triangle shapes, but has no fixed number of columns or rows, and the final shape produced is always completely solid (no hollow parts).

My initial assumption was that the boxes (their size is predetermined by some factor on the site) were sorted randomly and then sequentially added to the grid using a few simple rules, however I can't identify what those rules might be, or how they could prevent any hollows in the final shape.

Does anyone have any idea how this works?

grid-layout algorithm
3 Answers

Here is the javascript code which does it (you need a html page with a div#container):

function ted_layout(settings, coordinates_array, num_elements, start_x, start_y, arrangement, remaining_elements, is_child){
    var num_columns = arrangement.length;
    var col = 0;
    var current_x = start_x;
    while( col < num_columns){
        var column_x_scale = 100 / arrangement[col];
        var current_column_arrangement;
        if(is_child){
            if(num_elements > 14){
                if(column_x_scale == 50){
                    current_column_arrangement = random_shuffle([1, 2, 2]);
                } else {
                    current_column_arrangement = random_shuffle([1, 2]);
                }
            } else if(num_elements > 10){
                if(column_x_scale == 50){
                    current_column_arrangement = [1];
                } else {
                    current_column_arrangement = random_shuffle([1, 2]);
                }
            } else{
                    current_column_arrangement = random_shuffle([1, 2]);
            }
        } else {
            if(num_elements > 14){
                if(column_x_scale == 25){
                    current_column_arrangement = [1, 1];
                } else {
                    current_column_arrangement = [1];
                }
            } else if(column_x_scale == 25){
                    current_column_arrangement = [1, 1];
            } else {
                    current_column_arrangement = [1];
            }
        }


        var num_rows = current_column_arrangement.length;
        var current_y = start_y;
        var row = 0;
        while(row < num_rows){

            var numRects = current_column_arrangement[row];
            var current_rectangle = 0;
            var current_rectangle_x = current_x;

            while( current_rectangle < numRects){
                if(remaining_elements == 0){
                   return coordinates_array;
                }
                var currScale = column_x_scale/numRects;
                var height = settings.height * currScale*0.01;
                var width = settings.width * currScale*0.01;
                if(current_rectangle == numRects-1 && row == num_rows-1 && is_child && Math.random() > 0.5){
                    coordinates_array.push({x: current_rectangle_x, y:current_y, w:width/2, h:height/2, scale:currScale/2*0.01*2})
                }
                else{
                    coordinates_array.push({x: current_rectangle_x, y:current_y, w:width, h:height, scale:currScale*0.01*2})
                }
                current_rectangle_x += width;
                remaining_elements--;
                current_rectangle++;
            }
            row++;
            current_y += height;
        }
        current_x = current_rectangle_x;
        col++;
    }
    if( remaining_elements > 0){
        coordinates_array = ted_layout(settings, coordinates_array, num_elements, start_x, current_y, random_shuffle([2, 4, 4, 2]), remaining_elements, true);
    }
    return coordinates_array;
}


function generate_ted_layout(num_elements){
    var settings = {
        width: 640,
        height: 480,
    };
    var coordinates_array=[];
    returned = ted_layout(settings, coordinates_array, num_elements, 0, 0, random_shuffle([2, 4, 4, 2]), num_elements, false);
    console.log("Returned", returned)
    return returned;
}

function random_shuffle(array){
    var temp;
    for(var i = array.length - 1; i >= 1; i--){
        var elem = Math.floor(Math.random() * (i + 1));
        temp = array[elem];
        array[elem] = array[i];
        array[i] = temp;
    }
    return array;
}


function initAndLayout() {
    var items = generate_ted_layout(20);

    var container = $('#container');    // cache jquery object
    console.log(items);
    for (var i = 0; i < items.length; i++)
    {
        var item = items[i];
        console.log(item);
        $('#container').append($('<div class="item"></div>').css({'left': item.x, 'top': item.y, 'width': item.w, 'height': item.h}));
    }
}
user_30259710
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