Book Image

Drupal 6 Panels Cookbook

By : Bhavin (Vin) Patel
Book Image

Drupal 6 Panels Cookbook

By: Bhavin (Vin) Patel

Overview of this book

<p>The Drupal Panels module allows a site administrator to create customized layouts for multiple uses. At its core, it is a drag and drop content manager that lets you visually design a layout and place content within that layout. Guidance is required when it comes to successfully implementing panels in your CMS. The Panels module lacks sufficient documentation and most Drupal users are left in the lurch with many unanswered questions.<br /><br />This book comes to your rescue and discusses all that you need to successfully incorporate Panels in your Drupal CMS. You will learn everything from setting up Panels, through using it, to integrating it with other modules. The book discusses the various problems involved in using Panels along with their solutions. It shows you how to reap added benefits using Panels.<br /><br />The book is a collection of simple useful recipes that gives a very clear understanding from the basics of Panels to complex implementations to generate Web 2.0 layouts. It begins with the basics and gradually delves deeper into the complexities of Panels. You will learn how to set up CTools and Panels, upgrade from Panels 2 to Panels 3, about page layout, theming, and lots more. The layout of the book is a series of interconnected but distinct recipes that gives a basic understanding of usage of Panels in Drupal and also the advanced settings that makes Panels one of the most powerful modules .You will learn to master the Panels user interface and theme each panel quickly with a series of practical recipes. You will be able to integrate powerful Drupal modules like Organic Views, Advanced Profile Kit, Views, CCK, and many more to create socially connected Web 2.0 websites.</p>
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Drupal 6 Panels Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewer
Preface

Chapter 3. Theming for Panels

In this chapter, we will cover:

  • How to embed CSS in panes

  • Adding ID/class in Panels UI and target theme

  • Applying styles to regions

  • Creating a flexible design layout

Introduction

Using Panels puts the power of configuring layouts and selecting styles more in the hands of the Drupal administrator.

The major advantage of using CSS with Panels is modularity and reusability.

3

Let's see a beautiful example of a Panels website. I take http://socialistworker.org as the example here. This site makes extensive use of Panels. This site has been taken for demonstration purpose only.

In the case of SocialistWorker.org, several custom Panels were defined, which the editors can choose from when laying out their home page each day, with subtle variations on the size of the leading story, column widths, and so on.

  • Uses Panels 2—front page is entirely drag-and-drop, using Panels 2.

  • Editors lay out tomorrow's front page in advance using a draft. A draft Panel for tomorrow's front page...