[development] Blocks and Regions rethink (concept needs feedback)

[Earl Miles]

Sam Tresler wrote:
> I'm aware we just hit code freeze so this is waaayyyy into the future, 
> but I have a few itches that need to be scratched soon and want to 
> garner feedback (concept needs feedback) on some ideas.
> 
> I constantly use and abuse the ability to add regions nearly anywhere in 
> drupal and find it incredibly useful.
> 
> That said, The blocks admin section has a few highly infuriating ui 
> issues.  Namely.
> 
>      * You can only assign a block to one region at a time.
>      * Current inability to 'clone' blocks.
>      * Block admin is at block-admin not inline.
> 
> I want to start work on some features that would first create a 'blocks 
> available' and a 'Regions Using Blocks' interface at the block admin 
> page - In this manner you could take one block and print it in two 
> separate regions.  e.g. printing a menu in the footer and the left 
> sidebar, or printing "Who's online" block on the left sidebar on one 
> page and the right on another.
> 
> Second feature: Ability to edit blocks per page.  This, I would imagine 
> would take the form of a 'block edit' tab for properly permissioned 
> users.  Clicking it would take you to a block configuration page for 
> that URL - you could then specify if you want to wildcard the url per 
> each block (user/*), and set placement for each block.  I would envision 
> this as adding form elements for weight, url, roles, user visibility and 
>  region per block -or- a jQuery drag and drop feature (or one degrades 
> to the other)
> 
> Third feature:  Cloning Blocks.  When you want a block 'just like this 
> module generates only different' - cloning it would generate the 
> appropriate code in a custom block.  This is much less important to me, 
> just wnat to know if others find it useful.

I'm looking very seriously at attempting to deprecate block.module in Drupal 7 
and replace it with a verson of Panels 2.

Panels 2 has or by then will have almost all of the abilities you've mentioned 
here, plus a lot more.