[development] Fixing themes and regions

[Bèr Kessels]

I doubt it is 1), nor do I think 2) is very likely, though I lack any proof 
for that.

Op vrijdag 18 augustus 2006 08:47, schreef Dries Buytaert:
>    3. The block region feature does match people's expectations/need  
> but is simply too hard to use.  This could be due to a number of  
> things: (i) poor UI design, (ii) poor documentation, (iii) lack of  
> examples, etc.

Recently I started a new base theme, which I already used on two sites 
sucessfully. I think a third site will prove it to be release ready, and I'll 
give it a 4.7 brach.

The whole idea is: LOADS of regions. That theme has already 7 regions. Regions 
that are not called "top", "left" or "right", but have proper semantic names 
such as "tools", "branding" etc. I really hope this is a start for a second 
generation of (CSS) themes that break out of the threecol HTML, and get us 
into the era of semantic 3col layouts (the difference is only semantic)[1].  
For proper semantics one needs loads of regions. 

* examples: Indeed there are hardly any. Only examples how to build complex 
homepages. Let us get some good ones out there! themes.drupal.org suffers 
from the "bug" in core that only themes with left and right regions can be 
presented there in the first place. Anyone whom is creative and added a "post 
content region" but no left or right, can not present its theme there. This 
needs a solution, though I don't know any.

* poor UI design: I doubt it. We have much poorer designed features. If people 
need it, theyll get around usability thingies.

* documentation: again, the only i can find is how to make nicer frontpages. 
This is in fact more an abuse of regions then a proper use! :) Does anyone 
have anything working? I want to  finish up my docs[2] on using regions and 
nicer HTML in the next weeks, but have been overwhelmed (again). Maybe we can 
list more complete and other manuals?

Bèr
[1] http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/whats_in_a_name_pt2.html
[2] http://webschuur.com/node/635