Presentation given at LA Drupal camp, describes the basic components of the Panels family of modules and how they break down.

1. The Panels Family An overview

3. Custom content

4. Custom layouts

5. Custom styles

6. Mini Panels

7. Views panes

8. Views contexts

9. Custom rulesetsStructure Page Manager Page Panels Everywhere Content Panelizer Miscellaneous Panel fields (Views) Display suite

10. Typical Drupal Design Blue areas are regions Blocks in regions are unrelated to the content Have to use PHP snippets to make blocks context sensitive Can only place a block in one region All regions always render even when not displayed in page.tpl.php Header Content Left Sidebar Right Sidebar Footer

11. How Designers See A Page Everything on a page is a part of the content of that page, taken within the context of the entire site. Content

12. How Designers See A Page Everything on a page is a part of the content of that page, taken within the context of the entire site. Also, designers like grids. Content

13. Structure: Page Manager page Has URL path of its own System pages override existing Drupal functionality Can assign arguments to contexts Variants can provide different pages on criteria Exportable, can be provided by modules

14. What the Frog is Context?!?! Context is the underlying data you need to render a page. A context is an object in Drupal: i.e, node, user, view, entity, form, taxonomy term, etc. Arguments and relationships produce context Access rules, relationships, content panes consume context.

15. Contexts are objects Nodes Users Taxonomy terms Forms Any other object someone writes a plugin for

16. Context source: Arguments http://www.example.com/node/12345 Node: Story XYZ

17. Context source: Relationships Taxonomy Term Node: Story XYZ Post Author Node: Author Profile

18. Context at work Header Node: Story XYZ Taxonomy Term Left Sidebar Right Sidebar Post Author Node: Author Profile Footer

19. Structure: Panels Everywhere Partially or Completely replace page.tpl.php and block admin UI Change “page template” based upon context. Assign specific page templates directly to specific pages. Exportable, can be provided by modules and themes.

20. Content: Panelizer Panelizer.module Node which contains a panel Can have default panel layout Content creator can create new layout Lots of room for future expansion. Contributors wanted! 

21. Component: Custom Content Can simply from the UI or complex from a plugin Equivalent to custom blocks in block UI Can control naming and categorization Text with an input filter Reusable Exportable

22. Component: Custom layout Regions that can contain blocks Can create as a plugin or using the “flexible” layout builder from the UI

23. Complex layout

24. Component: Custom style Can add decorations, such as rounded corners Can control CSS properties such as font size, weight Can repurpose panes to create tabsets, accordions Can be plugins, or simpler custom styles can be created in the UI and exported. See: Stylizer module

25. Component: Mini panel Anything you want in a panel…in a block (or pane) Useful for side by side or for putting several distinct content pieces together for re-use

26. Component: Views pane A special display type that makes a view available as a content pane Can use contexts as arguments Can control the appearance in the Add Content dialog Can control what config option is available Can optionally allow panel config to control which fields show Can repurpose exposed filters into panel config to improve experience of content managers

27. Component: Views context Load a view into a context Split the pieces of a view across a layout Extract other contexts from view results

28. Component: Custom ruleset Group complex rules (a & b & c) into a single rule to make life easier for content managers

29. Misc: Panels fields Style plugin for view Split the fields of a view across a layout

30. Misc: Display suite Display suite now can use Panels layout and content to control node layout directly from the display suite UI

31. Pain Points Too many ways to do Views Can be hard to do forms that aren’t nodes Modules that don’t talk Panels don’t put their content in a way Panels can use it Block system sucks, spreads suck to everything it touches