To date, Drupal is the most popular enterprise-level CMS. It now powers thousands of popular websites on the Internet. Most of the pages of your Drupal website will follow the general layout defined by your theme, which is normally a header section on the top, a footer at the bottom, left and/or right sidebars, and a content section in the middle. However, a few pages of your website need to have a different layout. This is where Panels come into the picture. Panels allow you to create sections and many possible layouts.
Do you want to make custom Drupal pages and impressive front page layouts? And more importantly, do you want to know how to make them without coding? Just keep reading!
Chapter 1, Getting Started, explains what Panels are and why we should use them. This chapter gives an introduction to Panels and helps you to set up Panels on your Drupal code base. It details all of the steps required to get Panels up and running.
Chapter 2, Changing Panel Interface, as the name suggests will help you build Panels through the Panels User Interface. The chapter teaches the basics of Panels, such as creating a clone of a layout page, adding menus to Panels, and using contexts. We also make impressive layouts taking examples of well-known Internet websites using Panels.
Chapter 3, Theming for Panels, helps us dive further and use CSS for Panels so that we can customize the look and feel of individual Panels within the page.
Chapter 4, Implementing Panels, is a chapter centered on building website looks with Panels. It shows you how to create a custom front page for a website. It gives insight to creating a node edit form with a Panel and also the process of generating a node override within Panels. It also gives you knowledge for using Mini panels.
Chapter 5, Panels with Organic Groups, shows how Panels work with Organic Groups to give a multisite functionality. The power of Panels helps the user to generate individual pages for each user or a group.
Chapter 6, Panels with CCK, is where you will learn how to use custom Content types with Panels. Create your own Content type and display the nodes of the Content type in Panels.
Chapter 7, Advanced Profile Kit, guides you in generating powerful User Profiles with Panels and the Advanced Profile Kit to boost up your next social media project on Drupal.
Chapter 8, Panels-related Modules, is where we will stop and see some interesting modules mash up with Panels such as creating language panels for multilingual websites, making Facebook-type messages, and creating a form within a Panel.
Chapter 9, Views, shows how we can use Views as a wonderful combination with Panels to create powerful features. In this chapter, we cover recipes to make a dynamic news update site and to make video Panels.
Chapter 10, Creating a Travel Website Using Panels, helps build a multifunctional travel website using Panels. We start from creating the wireframes, making custom Content types, generating views for each Content type, and then making Panels to display the dynamic content. The chapter itself is a crash course in generating a powerful dynamic website in a matter of hours not days!
In the Appendix to this book, you will find the chapter-wise list of modules used in the recipes.
Knowledge of running a Drupal site is essential. Basic HTML, PHP, and JavaScript knowledge is a prerequisite for the book. But don't worry, you will be provided step by step explanations throughout the book. You will find this book very easy to follow.
This book is for Drupal developers who want to enhance the attractiveness of their website and make it impressive.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus, or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Paste the copied content into the Import data box and click on Import."
Note
Tips and tricks appear like this.
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to< [email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.
If there is a book that you need and would like to see us publish, please send us a note in the SUGGEST A TITLE form on www.packtpub.com or e-mail< [email protected]>.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Note
Downloading the example code for the book
You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.PacktPub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.PacktPub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/support, selecting your book, clicking on the errata submission form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded on our website, or added to any list of existing errata, under the Errata section of that title. Any existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.
Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works, in any form, on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at< [email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.
You can contact us at< [email protected]> if you are having a problem with any aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.