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: