A “Delta snapshot” is best described as a carbon copy of your base theme configuration settings at the time of the Delta snapshot’s creation. It allows you to create unique page layouts as stand-alone, editable templates of your original base theme settings. Elements like grid settings, zone and region configuration, and more are modifiable per Delta snapshot. This allows your site to display an infinite number of unique and fully customizable page layouts each with a distinct set of configuration settings. Delta snapshots are available to be used by other modules; such as the Context module, which allows you to apply those snapshots based on conditions that you define.

While that may sound somewhat complex, it’s actually quite simple. Using a Delta snapshot, you can customize a layout for your “Home” page, re-arranging and re-sizing regions, enabling certain javascript libraries (such as slideshow libraries) and even enabling a region that is usually disabled. All this can be done without any effect to the rest of the site.

Instead of modifying code in .tpl files like you may be used to when theming a Drupal site, the Delta module now provides the ability to rearrange site content or alter the theme output using Omega’s UI. This is a massive gain in capability for people who are new to Drupal theming and for those who are not yet comfortable working directly with code.

Now that we have piqued your curiosity in the Delta Module let’s create a snapshot and get to work on altering it.