Mainsail Multi-Webcam Panels

A Mainsail fork for Klipper / Moonraker that gives every webcam its own dashboard panel.

"Webcam", "Webcam 2", "Webcam 3"… — one independent panel per camera, each with its own camera selection, its own collapsed state and its own position in the layout. Panels appear automatically as you add cameras in Moonraker: no dropdown, no split view, no configuration.

(live camera streams are blurred in the screenshots — your dashboard shows the real feeds)

This page is the guide: install the fork step by step, then use the panels. One thing lives in a separate document: UPDATES.md — how to keep the panels across Mainsail updates.

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What it does

Stock Mainsail	This fork
One single "Webcam" panel; multiple cameras share it through a grid or a dropdown	One panel per camera: "Webcam", "Webcam 2", "Webcam 3", …
—	Each panel remembers its own selected camera
—	Each panel collapses / moves / hides independently
Adding a camera adds it to the single panel's grid	Adding a camera in Moonraker makes a new panel appear automatically

The number of panels scales automatically with the number of cameras configured in Moonraker. Nothing to configure: no file to edit, no rebuild. Requested upstream since 2022 (#1661, #758), never implemented.

What it changes

3 files, ~25 lines on top of official Mainsail v2.18.2, reusing a mechanism Mainsail already ships (the multi-instance macro-group panels). Everything else behaves exactly as upstream.

File	Role
src/store/gui/getters.ts	declares the webcam_2…webcam_N panels (N = number of cameras)
src/components/panels/WebcamPanel.vue	panelId prop: "Webcam N" title, camera selection and collapse state stored per panel
src/components/mixins/dashboard.ts	panel name and icon in the layout editor

Each panel's camera selection is stored in the Moonraker database under a per-panel key — which is why it survives page reloads and updates. Full diff: official v2.18.2 → multiwebcam branch.

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Install — from stock Mainsail to the panels

Time: about 10 minutes. The build happens on your computer; the printer only receives files.

What you need

• A computer with git and Node.js 20.19+ or 22.12+ (node --version) — a PC, a WSL shell, a Mac. Not the printer.
• A printer running Mainsail through Moonraker, with SSH access. On MainsailOS / KIAUH installs the Mainsail web root is ~/mainsail — if yours differs, check the root line in /etc/nginx/sites-available/mainsail and adapt the paths below.

Step 0 — Back up first (do not skip)

Everything below is reversible only if you have a copy. On the printer:

cp ~/printer_data/config/moonraker.conf \
   ~/printer_data/config/moonraker.conf.bak_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)
tar czf ~/mainsail-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).tar.gz -C ~ mainsail

Restoring: put the saved moonraker.conf back, extract the tarball over ~/mainsail, sudo systemctl restart moonraker, reload the browser twice.

Never install or update while a print is running.

Step 1 — Build the patched Mainsail (on your computer)

git clone https://github.com/Nitrooxyde/mainsail-multi-webcam-panels.git
cd mainsail-multi-webcam-panels
npm ci
npm run build

This produces a dist/ folder: a complete, ready-to-serve Mainsail with the patch applied. (If the output ends with zip: not found, ignore it — the zip is only used for GitHub releases; dist/ is all you need.)

Step 2 — Copy the build to the printer

On your computer (replace pi@mainsailos.local with your printer):

tar czf mainsail-multiwebcam.tar.gz -C dist .
scp mainsail-multiwebcam.tar.gz pi@mainsailos.local:~

On the printer:

mv ~/mainsail ~/mainsail.old_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)
mkdir ~/mainsail
tar xzf ~/mainsail-multiwebcam.tar.gz -C ~/mainsail

Step 3 — Reload and check the result

Open Mainsail in the browser and reload the page twice — Mainsail is a PWA and the first reload can still serve the old interface from the service-worker cache. (Same thing for OrcaSlicer's Device tab: it has its own cache, reload it twice too.)

With two or more webcams configured (Settings → Webcams), this is what you should get — a separate "Webcam 2" panel, independent from the first:

With a single webcam configured, the dashboard looks exactly like stock Mainsail — the extra panels only appear from the second camera on.

⚠️ Installed this way, the panels last only until the next Mainsail update. Your Update Manager still follows official mainsail-crew releases: the next time you click "update" there, it reinstalls stock Mainsail over your build and the panels are gone. UPDATES.md shows how to make updates install your build instead (~15 minutes, once).

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Using the panels

Pick a camera for each panel

A panel with no camera assigned yet shows the "All" grid (every camera at once). Click the dropdown at the top right of the panel and pick its camera. The choice is saved per panel — you will not have to do it again.

Move, collapse or hide a panel

Every webcam panel behaves like any other Mainsail panel:

1. Open Settings (cog icon, top right) → Dashboard.
2. The "Webcam", "Webcam 2", … panels appear in the list: drag to reorder, click the checkbox to hide the ones you don't want.

Add a 3rd or 4th camera

1. Settings → Webcams → add your camera (exactly like on stock Mainsail).
2. Done. A "Webcam 3" panel appears on the dashboard automatically. Don't want it as a separate card? Hide it (see above) — the camera stays available in the other panels' dropdowns.

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Keeping the panels across updates

The install above is deliberately the simplest possible one — but a stock Mainsail update erases it. The durable setup is a private update channel: a free private GitHub repo that holds your build, which your printer's [update_manager mainsail] follows with a read-only deploy key. From then on, updating from the Mainsail UI installs your patched build, and a new official Mainsail release is one script run away.

📖 UPDATES.md — the full step-by-step (~15 minutes, done once).

Going back to stock Mainsail

Restore your Step 0 backup (moonraker.conf + the ~/mainsail tarball), restart Moonraker, reload twice. Or simply let the Update Manager reinstall official Mainsail over ~/mainsail. If you set up the private channel, follow UPDATES.md → Going back to stock instead.

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Disclaimer

• Unofficial fork, and no support. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by mainsail-crew. Do not open issues about this fork on their tracker, and do not ask them to support a printer running it — their maintainers owe you nothing here. Issues are closed on this repository too: it is published as source to fork and read, not as a supported product. You are on your own — which is exactly why Step 0 (backup) matters.
• This repository ships no releases and no binaries. It is source and documentation. If you set up an update channel, it is your own private repository — your printer must never depend on this one or anyone else's. Pointing [update_manager mainsail] at this repository is explicitly not supported.
• No warranty. Provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, as stated in sections 15 and 16 of the GPL-3.0 this fork inherits. You install and run it on your own machine, at your own risk.
• Back up before every change — see Step 0. A saved moonraker.conf and a tarball of ~/mainsail turn any problem into a two-minute rollback.
• Your machine stays yours. This fork only changes Mainsail's web interface: it never touches printer.cfg, kinematics, heaters or any Klipper setting. It remains your responsibility to keep your printer, its configuration and its prints in a safe state — including never updating mid-print.

Credits

Credit where credit is due:

• Idea and request — @Nitrooxyde. The idea of truly independent webcam panels, the request to build it, and the validation on a running Voron 2.4 — in their own words, nothing more.
• The fork itself — Claude Fable 5 (Anthropic), running in Claude Code: feasibility study, architecture, the patch, the build/update pipeline, the screenshots and this documentation.
• Mainsail — mainsail-crew, GPL-3.0. This fork only adds ~25 lines on top of their work; everything else that makes Mainsail good is theirs.

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_{This is a fork of Mainsail by mainsail-crew (GPL-3.0). For everything about Mainsail itself — features, documentation, community — see the upstream README and docs.mainsail.xyz.}