[development] Fixing themes and regions

[Boris Mann]

On 8/18/06, Khalid B <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:
>
> > The block regions feature was touted as a much needed improvement,
> > and after many years, finally made it into Drupal 4.7.  That said, I
> > haven't seen that many people take advantage of it.  This can mean
> > (at least) three things:
>
> I use the 4.7 region feature extensively.
>
> Before I converted my sites to 4.7, I used several methods to display
> adsense blocks. These ranged from the flexiblock module, to calling
> block_block('view', $delta) directly.
>
> When I converted my sites to 4.7, I junked all that in favor of regions.
>
> I even went further and had one "announcment" block at the top center
> of the page, also using regions.
>
> One problem I ran into, is that all blocks now inherit the styles of side
> bar blocks, and I had to work around that with some quick hacks.


Well, that is absolutely theme dependent. If you do styles that look like
.region .block, then all will be different. block.tpl.php still ends up
being a giant switch statement for truly unique blocks (not just CSS
skinning).

I agree with what Nedjo is saying, that normalization could help. I did
> not run into that issue myself, because most of my sites are one
> theme type of sites, however, I realize it can be a drag editing tons
> of themes.
>

There are some logic flow problems that make it hard(er). You edit/add
blocks "in" one theme, then hit save...and find yourself at the "first"
theme, even if that is not the default.

I'd love to see this approached from the point of view of themers. I do
think e.g. panels module is more what themers were hoping for: an easy way
to store chunks of content (nodes, blocks) and then a way to select where to
place them in a layout (panels).

There are a few themes that use regions to good affect. I think it's the
Internet (?) theme that has four columns -- one left, one main, two right.

-- 
Boris Mann
Vancouver 778-896-2747
San Francisco 415-367-3595
Skype borismann
http://www.bryght.com
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