[drupal-devel] [feature] Enable multiple block regions (not just "left" and "right" sidebars)

[Nathan Wheatley]

After some careful consideration, I actually don't think that a  
single theme with multiple styles is gong to be any different to  
multiple theme support.
Consider the CSS Zen Garden as an example. If we had one (very well)  
structured theme ship with an out-of-the-box installation, it would  
then be the designers job to style the content using CSS. The  
underlying XHTML and PHP really does not have to change. We could  
also ship this standard theme with multiple block regions (header,  
footer, left, right etc.) and if they are not required, the admin can  
turn them off, or the designer can set display:none to that blocks  
div in the css file.

I can't see the difference in having the choice of individual style  
sheets or multiple themes.

I am for single theme, multiple blocks. The Ui will get too messy and  
cluttered otherwise (IMO).
--
Nathan Wheatley

On 22/07/2005, at 6:27 PM, Dries Buytaert wrote:

>
> On 22 Jul 2005, at 00:31, Boris Mann wrote:
>
>> The very fact that we are talking about removing existing  
>> functionality seems to suggest to me that this is being approached  
>> wrong.
>>
>
> There is nothing wrong with (i) removing existing functionality  
> when it makes sense to and (ii) there is nothing wrong with talking  
> about removing existing functionality.  For many of us, it doesn't  
> appear to make sense though.
>
>
>> I say, have the theme define it's regions, and drive the block  
>> admin page. Essentially, two modes of operation. If there is a  
>> block.admin.php (or whatever) in the theme, use that. Otherwise,  
>> fall back to defaults (which might just be left/right). Heck, I  
>> can see options where I put complicated logic in a theme and/or  
>> block admin section to allow users to control what blocks appear  
>> on their user page.
>>
>
> That is what the patch does (see issue): a theme exports its  
> regions to the block administration page.  Right now, all regions  
> are aggregated into one block administration page and you can  
> assign each block to one region accross all themes.  If a theme  
> doesn't implement the selected region, the block goes to the  
> theme's default region.  This (i) results in confusion and (ii) has  
> some limitations for multi-theme support.  The solution would be to  
> clone the block administration for each theme, but that gets messy  
> too.  Alternatively, we could move the 'Location' settings from the  
> main block administration page to the blocks' individual  
> configuration pages, and provide one selection menu for each  
> theme.  It's somewhat tedious to administer but it would solve most  
> of the problems.
>
> --
> Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/
>
>
>
>