Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/16216 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: block.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: paragkenia Updated by: syscrusher Status: patch Instead of having themes "register" their regions, why not just add a theme API hook called them_regions() that returns an associative array of $region_name=>t($region_helptext)? This would be in keeping with other similar API functions, such as those that return what permissions apply to a module or what node types are defined by a module. Most themes are going to define only a small number of regions (two being the typical case now, but I could see five or six in a complex theme), so returning a constant array will be faster than querying SQL to obtain an array of rows. There could be (optionally, at the discretion of whoever builds this thing) another API hook like theme_region_properties($region_name) that returns an associative array with detailed info for a given region, such as extended help text with recommended usage instructions for the region. Scott syscrusher Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 26, 2005 - 05:27 : paragkenia I read the comparision discussion between *Drupal* and *Mambo*. In several messages it was outlined that Drupal can place blocks only in right and left and not flexible to put them on anywhere where one want. It will be great if this can be changed in upcoming versions. I am no pro at PHP, so don't know how much time this task will take, but I think it is very important. parag ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 14, 2005 - 20:44 : nedjo This issue was apparently partially addressed in issue http://drupal.org/node/19694 [1]. [1] http://drupal.org/node/19694 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 16, 2005 - 19:24 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block-dynamic-regions.patch (8.17 KB) This much-requested functionality - to have the ability to place blocks in more than the two predefined regions - was partially addressed in issue http://drupal.org/node/19694. [2]. But "blocks" are still limited to the "left" and "right" sidebars (hard-coded in block.module). This patch is a first step designed to enable multiple (eventually, admin-definable) regions for blocks. I've moved the existing "left" and "right" block regions to a 'region' table (with ids of 0 and 1, as currently used in themes). Then all references to the regions are drawn dynamically from the table. This way, if further records are added, they will appear in the list of available regions for block placement. Doing this actually reduces some duplicated code, since it's no longer necessary to repeat code blocks for each of "left" and "right". As it stands, the patch doesn't add any new functionality--but I don't think it breaks anything either. New functionality would need (a) new regions defined, and (b) changes to themes. A simple first step might be, e.g., to add a "footer" region and then add a call in the footer generation to append any blocks assigned to the footer region there. I'm setting this to patch, but I'm aware that it needs some discussion and refining before it'll be ready to apply. [2] http://drupal.org/node/19694. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 16, 2005 - 20:05 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block_regions.png (5.65 KB) Here's a screenshot showing the block admin page, with drop-downs for region placement (the options are dynamically generated based on defined regions). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 16, 2005 - 21:57 : adrian The biggest problem with this is that you can have multiple themes, and each of these themes can have different regions available. Also, the method of defining which regions are available needs to be standardised. Some of the work that me and Vlado are working on for the install system would go towards solving that problem (ie: meta information for modules, themes and styles). This has been discussed to death, but the general consensus has been that we _want_ to do this, but we need to solve a few other problems properly first, the most pertinent being the interface issue. Chris (factoryjoe) recently did a whole mess of workflows for something related to this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 16, 2005 - 23:09 : syscrusher The first paragraph of adrian [3]'s post is a point that occurred to me also, as I read this thread. One suggestion would be to separate the definition and configuration of blocks, on one hand, from the placement of those blocks, on the other hand. In other words, Drupal core provides a mechanism defining what blocks exist, which of these are on by default or off by default and user-selectable vs. which are forced on for all users, and the configuration (if applicable) of specialized blocks defined by particular modules. Each theme provides a standard hook function that returns an array of region names and help/description text, e.g., array('left'=>t('This vertical region is left of the main content area'), 'right'=>t('This vertical region is right of the main content area'), 'footer'=>t('The footer is below the left, right, and main content areas of the page')). The theme part of Drupal core (i.e., theme.module itself, not the individual themes) provides a standard UI that is displayed within config of *each theme* (but is one physical code base within theme.module) that allows the administrator to map blocks defined by Drupal core into regions defined by the theme, and storing that mapping as an theme-to-block_ID-to-region_ID (with weight) table in the database. From there, the actual page rendering is similar to what's being done now, but there is more of it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the key to solving this problem is breaking it along its degrees of orthogonality, and there are three -- two in Drupal core and one in the individual theme. Scott [3] http://drupal.org//user/1517 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 02:14 : Dries Scott, is right. The theme should export its available regions. Then the administrator's task is to assign blocks to regions (not to setup regions). A theme could have configurable regions, but that internal to the theme. To me, the real challenge is the UI and the interaction design. Configuring blocks could easily become a real pain (while most themes continue to use 'left' and 'right'.) Of course, we can implement all the functionality, default everything to 'left' and 'right', and worry about the UI later. This should be fairly straightforward to implement and nedjo's patch looks like a first step in the right direction. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 16:09 : nedjo I agree with the suggested approach of themes registering their regions. I'd see this happening when a particular theme is activiated (or upgraded). Regions would be an array of names (e.g., 'left', 'right', 'footer'). New records would be created in the region table only for region names not previously registered. Some areas I'm not clear on, or that need further work: Table naming Should a new table be 'region' or 'regions' (I've used 'region')? I don't see a convention among existing table names, some of which are singular and others plural. Default values I've kept the existing '0' and '1' ids for regions (left and right, respectively), for backward compatibility. But this means we can't use autoincrement for the region id (rid), since autoincrements seem to begin with 1. Likely we should change to autogenerated ids. Initial records Using the INSERT INTO statements as I've done for the initial region entries is probably counterproductive, since sooner or later they'll have to be dynamically generated. I was hoping this could be a preliminary patch, with the main work coming later, but likely we need to solve region registration by themes before this patch is applied. I don't have a good idea of how region registration by themes would be implemented (a hook on theme activation?), and invite suggestions or implementations. Theme system changes Besides region registration, the other change I'm seeing that would be needed in the theme system is loading blocks by region name, rather than region id. This is because the ids currently used ('0' and '1') in theory might be diffferent on a particular install.