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

Creating an OG with Panels


With OG Panels, you can create a website in a website. This means that we can create a home page for the Group that behaves as an independent website by itself, where users can register, create their own posts, and add comments depending upon the permissions granted by the group administrator.

Let's take a case example to make a custom OG using OG Panels.

Let's assume that we need to create on our website a different page for each open source technology. For example, we will have a separate page for Drupal and PHP. Each of these separate pages behaves as a separate group website, where people can join the group, add, and edit their content.

In this recipe, we will create a separate OG for a Drupal Group website built with our main Drupal install.

Getting ready

Let's first make a visualization of how our Story OG Drupal will look like:

  • The Header part: Welcome note to the group

  • The Footer part: Static content: Is Drupal the right thing for your project?

  • The Main content...