[support] Drupal 6 --> 7 : reducing vertical space in Panels

[Jamie Holly]

Honestly, that isn't at all bad. White space is very key in layout. You 
don't want things that close together, as it strains the readers eyes, 
especially in a time when we have multiple device screen resolutions. 
Here's a great article on it:

http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/white-space-in-web-design-what-it-is-and-why-you-should-use-it

It's hard to tell from the screenshot, but most likely something adding 
to the space is bottom margins on paragraphs and top/bottom margins on 
headings. It's about impossible for a theme designer to know any and all 
combinations of visual elements that a user is going to incorporate in 
their site, especially given the flexibility of Drupal. For example, you 
might have paragraph tags have a 15 px bottom margin, but have lists use 
a 40px bottom margin. If a panel/block ends with a paragraph, it would 
have the 15px, but have the same panel/block end in a list and you get 
that 40px. That's why it's very common to add custom CSS into any site, 
just so you can tweak it right where you want it.

Having said all that, there are less than 3,000 installs of that theme 
for Drupal 7, so it's not really all that popular. Once you get past the 
biggies like Zen, Bootstrap, AdaptiveTheme and Omega, the popularity of 
themes really drops off quick. That's because many end up using one of 
those themes as a base then tweak everything else out to their likings 
in a sub-theme.


Jamie Holly
http://hollyit.net

On 11/28/2014 2:23 PM, Darrell Eifert wrote:
> Hello Jamie --
>
> Thank you for the suggestions.  I may eventually have to go that 
> route, but I was thinking that if Panels worked fine "out of the box" 
> on the D6 site, that I must be overlooking a simple setting in the D7 
> version that is resulting in the extra vertical spacing.  I would be 
> surprised if the programmers released such a popular module that came 
> pre-configured / hard-coded  to render a default page with such large 
> vertical breaks ... (see attached screenshot).
>
> Best,
>
> Darrell Eifert
> Lane Memorial Library
> (603) 926-3368
> On 11/28/2014 11:51 AM, Jamie Holly wrote:
>> You do not want to edit any files. Instead create a new theme that is 
>> a sub theme of the theme you are using and create a new CSS file in 
>> there, with the new rules you need.
>>
>> https://www.drupal.org/node/225125
>>
>> The other option is a custom module adding the new CSS file on 
>> hook_init, but going the subtheme is generally the best route.
>>
>> From your home page, right click on the panel that is spaced wrong 
>> and select "inspect element" (Chrome and Firefox). That will show you 
>> the DOM tree and the style rules applied to it. You may have to work 
>> up the tree, but find the one giving the padding and/or margins that 
>> is causing the problem. Copy that style rule to your new CSS sheet 
>> and adjust the padding and/or margin to what you want.
>>
>> This is a pure CSS fix that is one of the basic fundamentals of 
>> building any site (Drupal or not). It won't affect the staff's 
>> ability to create announcements, as the fixes would be universal 
>> throughout the site.
>> Jamie Holly
>> http://hollyit.net
>> On 11/28/2014 11:29 AM, Darrell Eifert wrote:
>>> Hello Tony --
>>>
>>> Not sure ... we've pretty much used themes and modules "out of the 
>>> box" in creating the D6 site and they've worked remarkably well.   
>>> Our staff is trained to use the Panels UI and creates announcement 
>>> 'snippets' on a regular basis to update the main page.  If I could 
>>> keep this functionality that would be fine -- what kind of css 
>>> modification were you thinking of, and to what files?
>>>
>>> -- Darrell
>>>
>>> On 11/28/2014 10:55 AM, Tony wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Would it not be easier to do it with css?
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 28, 2014 7:49 AM, "Darrell Eifert" 
>>>> <deifert at hampton.lib.nh.us <mailto:deifert at hampton.lib.nh.us>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     Hello --
>>>>
>>>>     We just upgraded a copy of our Drupal 6 site using the Zen /
>>>>     CTI-Flex
>>>>     theme to Drupal 7 using an AtaptiveTheme base with the Mix and
>>>>     Match
>>>>     theme.  Everything went smoothly, except for how Panels behaves
>>>>     in the
>>>>     new D7 theme.  We have a simple two-column center panel between
>>>>     two side
>>>>     columns (see http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us for the current D6
>>>>     production
>>>>     site), and the D7 version of Panels creates an unacceptably
>>>>     huge amount
>>>>     of vertical white space between the panels.  If I change each
>>>>     individual
>>>>     panel to "no markup", the vertical panel space shrinks, but I
>>>>     also lose
>>>>     the side and center margins of the two columns, which I would
>>>>     like to keep.
>>>>
>>>>     Before I start trying to change the Panels module code, does
>>>>     anyone have
>>>>     a simple suggesting for reducing the vertical space between
>>>>     panels in a
>>>>     column?
>>>>
>>>>     Thanks in advance ...
>>>>
>>>>     Darrell Eifert
>>>>     Lane Memorial Library
>>>>     --
>>>>     [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

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