Using precision and panels everywhere

fjvu.dk was just redesigned. We needed a custom frontpage and on the subpages we needed control over how many sidebars we used. We chose panels everywhere with the precision theme. I expect that you have knowledge on how to install and enable the needed modules.

First I started my own subtheme of precision which is located at github.

Panels everywhere can be used in many different ways. I choose to use the base theme precision which comes packaged with different layouts. Hopefully the following will make it possible for you to prototype your site quickly.

Precision expects the site template to be used as a basic wrapper, and either use the other layouts inside the main section or you could roll your own.

Build the wrapper

Go to admin/structure/panels to the dashboard. Edit the Default Site Temlate. Add a new variant. Choose the Precision Site Template under layout. Under content you can add content to the different regions. That was your basic wrapper for your page. The content section is only one column. If you need an advanced layout in the header or the footer, you can use mini panels. I made sure to disable the Drupal blocks and regions.

Take control of the content area

Go back to the panels dashboard.

Now you can add different layouts inside the main content area.

First, I built a custom frontpage using the panels flexible builder. I put some view panes and custom panes into the different regions and altered my stylesheets a bit. The picture slideshow on the frontpage is made with views_slideshow, but that is outside the scope for this article.

Second, I created layouts for subpages. We just needed two or three columns. We rolled our own layouts easily starting off from the layouts already supplied by Precision. We activated the layout for nodes and added different layouts for the different content types. We also created a couple of custom pages to wrap our different views. These are used where I earlier would have created a page in views. Now I create my views as content panes, which give me more flexibility.

Conclusion

Precision was easy to work with. Just use the example layouts provided with precision. A killer feature would be a flexible builder to put instead of the default panels builder, but utilizing the grid system from precision.

Are you using the same approach?