Hello

In my opinion, i think the correct path to follow would be to use Semantic Views to style the outputed fields in the View. Where's why:

Semantic Views
It's easy, simple enough, and lightweight.
It allows styling both Labels and Fields.
It allows selecting the element (div, span, etc).
You can combine it with Grids, Unformatted, and other styles (but not table).
It's compatible with other modules, like Panels and Views Fluid Grid style, so you can use both Semantic Views and Panels at same time
Semantic Views is being merged with Views 3.x, so it will be available by default and will be properly supported
As it's a Views module, it supports all Views fields, including all the ones from Ubercart.
Conclusion: almost ideal, very flexible

Panels would be a overkill that would require a lot of views bundled together per path (1 view per field - 5 fields/views x 4 panels) and would be far slower because of that.
You can't style both the Label and Field, like you do in Semantic Views.
Panels is for more experienced users.
Has minimal support for Ubercart fields through an unoficial dev module that adds support for SKU, Price and Add to cart button.
Conclusion: impratical, extremely powerful

Display Suite is not so complex and not as flexible as Panels, but on it's own is more complex than Semantic Views. Ligther than Panels.
You can't style both the Label and Field, like you do in Semantic Views.
Display Suite is for less experienced users.
Also, Display Suite is incompatible with Panels. You can't use both properly.
Has limited support for Ubercart.
Conclusion: conflicts with other modules, unflexible

So i urge you, please, change the development path from Display Suite to Semantic Views. Ditch that unflexible module ASAP.

Comments

lpalgarvio’s picture

lpalgarvio commented

forgot to mention,

i'm using Drupal 6, Views 2.x, Ubercart 2.x, UC Views 3.x, UC Advanced Catalog 1.x and Semantic Views 1.x.
it works perfectly for the catalog pages.

i use the same approach for custom sidebars listing products (Views+Semantic Views)

for the product pages, i'm using Panels 3.x, along with Views+Semantic Views and Quicktabs 2.x.

swentel’s picture

swentel commented

@LPCA Panels works perfectly with DS, and I'm not saying that because I wrote it, it's because it does :)

lpalgarvio’s picture

lpalgarvio commented

i've read somewhere, perhaps in Ubercart Views, that it doesn't. i wouldn't know, but i trusted the source.

either way, my point is that Semantic Views is a way better bet for the Catalog than Panels or Display Suite. any time, any day.

in my case, i won't switch from 1.x-dev until that changes (if ever), because i don't want the overhead of yet another bunch of modules sitting on my setups, which does things that are already covered by Panels, Semantic Views and Semantic CCK.

dave_______1’s picture

dave_______1 commented

Hi Mog,

Is there any way to get the old module version back (but with pager working)?

I had to install 2 more modules to get this to work then get to know another way of doing things using these 2 new modules when Views (in my opinion) is a better option.
I got it working here:
http://ds-card.org
I want to add your module to all my other Ubercart sites but not with the overhead of 2 more modules slowing things down.

It was SO much better when it was just this module and views.

Thanks
Dave.

summit’s picture

summit commented

Subscribing, in favour of panels!
greetings, Martijn

lpalgarvio’s picture

lpalgarvio commented

Semantic Views is now officially integrated and bundled with Views 3.x, for Drupal 6 and Drupal 7.
http://drupal.org/node/740686#comment-3795424

It works with any kind of View style/output. You can set classes for each field value and label.

lpalgarvio’s picture

lpalgarvio commented

Semantic Views 7.x is also available with further options
and so is Semantic Fields 7.x (port of Semantic CCK 6.x)

lpalgarvio’s picture

lpalgarvio commented

btw, you can also use Views with Panel style layout.
it won't let you add Classes under 2.x (allows in 3.x, since Semantic got merged), but you can still add the Views main class and fix fields from there.

by using Panel style layout you get the flexibility of Panels + Theming of Semantic Views, which means everything get's covered by this solution

philsward’s picture

philsward commented

Gonna throw my $0.02 in and say that Panels 3, while yes is probably for "experienced users" out of the box, is absolutely BEAUTIFUL in what can be accomplished with it. I personally haven't tried the other two projects and really don't have a desire to now that I know the true potential of Panels.

I have an Ubercart site where I have overridden the node layout for my products and product kits. Instead of creating two different Panel variants, I only used one variant, then using the various rules, have certain things only show up on the product vs the product kit.

I will agree that UC v2.x and v3.x lack "proper" support for panels but it is gaining some headway at least in UC3.

I will note that panels does put a lot of code into the page that could otherwise be handled through a .tpl file, but the flexibility of Panels in being able to manipulate the layout of a page, far out weighs the extra code.

I have a site where I needed to "theme" the output of a taxonomy vocabulary. I always heard that views could do this, so I started in that direction, only to find that views likes to override the layout for ALL vocabularies, not one specific vocab. (I'm sure it can be done, but not easily...) That's when I realized Panels CAN easily override a single vocab which allows you to effectively have a different layout for each vocabulary.

In conclusion, if you are looking for a layout project with a heck of a lot of potential, check out Panels. IMHO, the biggest "learning curve" is the panel layout editor. It's pretty difficult to wrap your head around, but once you figure it out, it's pretty painless to create ANY layout of columns on a page you might need. Also, Templates is where it's at. I don't recommend using the "Panel Node" module included with it at all. You can override pretty much any node you want, using the templates. There is even a "landing page" template for overriding the home page if you want.

lpalgarvio’s picture

lpalgarvio commented

try Panels + Panelizer (3.x) to change layouts for nodes, taxonomy and users, with support for view modes