stack sidebars differently?

Lots of very good and interesting ideas! I will come back to this shortly and review each one, I want to have a think about this first. Cheers!

Yeah, I know the issue, its whats really holding us back. Have you seen the Roadmap issue #1389536: 2012 Roadmap - The Great Leap Forward, this is where I bang on about Panels a lot. Where I am going is to remove layout from themes and put it in modules like Panels and Display Suite, wtih CTools/Mobile Tools providing context and Page manager wrapping the whole thing up.

Until then, yes its possible to change the position of the sidebar, tricky, but certainly not impossible. Its tricky because you really need to know the height of the sidebar (when its horizontal in mobile view). I can work on a few ideas with CSS that might be able to get around this requirement... stay tuned.

Let me give you a tip, in Zen the navigation menu is below the main content yet appears above it, so that is a place to look for inspiration. I also wrote an article some years ago on how to add a sidebar top type region, it uses CSS along the same lines - look at the CSS in the screenshot added to this article, its way close to what could achieve your goal: http://adaptivethemes.com/how-to-add-a-sidebar-top-region-in-genesis

That will work if you get the values right.

he he, no you did not offend me, its just my warped sense of humour, I hope I did not offend you or anyone else either.

Hi,
I'm running Adaptive Theme and AT commerce, both 7.x-3.x-dev
wow I'm amazed with so many important changes, It looks even better, and seems to work very good and faster.

I need support with this issue, so I need to keep the first sidebar always there, on the left of content.

Its tricky because you really need to know the height of the sidebar (when its horizontal in mobile view)

I can know exactlý the height of this region (will be not more of 400px), it's going to hold only the logo and slogan.

thanks

I'll put some thought on it, all of us (base theme developers) are thinking about this very problem.

I can see a few ways to do this:

1. Introduce a "third sidebar" which sits above the main content (in the source order), this would allow for any height of content, but its really complicates the code and user interface for setting up the layout.
2. Use JavaScript to calculate the height, problem with this is it will break on any device that doesn't support JS but does support CSS - there are lots of these devices (many feature phones for example).
3. Supply the layout but leave it up to the themer to sort out the issues OR offer a text field to type in the height of the sidebar when you select this option (could be a good option).
4. Pioneer an entirely new approach and solve a problem no one else has every been able to, not just Drupal, I mean no one has ever solved the root issue.

I'm punting for 3 or 4, thinking to give 4 another crack and actually try to solve this (it may be impossible, is a difficult problem), and 3 is certainly doable.

I'm not good enough to points 2, 3 and 4 I think. And the option 2 is not for me since the height of my sidebar is fixed (380px).
I am trying what I understand of point 1:

Introduce a "third sidebar" which sits above the main content (in the source order), this would allow for any height of content, but its really complicates the code and user interface for setting up the layout.

It means add a region here?

(...)
              <?php if ($action_links = render($action_links)): ?>
                <ul class="action-links clearfix"><?php print $action_links; ?></ul>
              <?php endif; ?>
            </div>
          <?php endif; ?>

         <DIV ID="NEW-REGION"><?PHP PRINT RENDER($PAGE['NEW_REGION']); ?></DIV>

          <div id="content"><?php print render($page['content']); ?></div>

        </<?php print $tag; ?>>

        <?php print render($page['content_aside']); ?>

      </div></div>

      <?php print render($page['sidebar_first']); ?>
      <?php print render($page['sidebar_second']); ?>

    </div></div>

I know, and in the info file, etc... But did you mean this position in the page tpl?

Thanks

Maybe, or higher up the source order. I am not really interested in discussion option 1 in any seriousness, there are already loads of regions that you can use for an aside type region this produces and its pretty easy if you know CSS, what the core theme needs is something all users can handle and be easily managed via the UI.

FYI The 7.x-3.x theme already has Panels layouts that can do 1.

I have decided in the end to postpone this for the core theme. The Panels layouts can to an extent do this and its just gotten too late in the cycle to try and get this in, I need to release the theme so will consider this over the coming months for a point release, see how othere react to the theme as it hits the wild in large numbers etc etc.

Ok, I asked because I had problems trying option 1 and I am a little bit lost because subtheming and responsiveness are new for me. I think I got it now, thanks!

I think this is the same thing I was going to ask. My use case is probably better explained with a picture! I want the blocks do to this when I wrap. Or am I asking for something slightly different?

daresbalat - you might want to look at this, and the new feature in the latest DEV of Adaptivetheme, it can do exactly what you are asking for.

http://drupal.org/node/1626618 and http://adaptivethemes.com/move-or-hide-regions-and-blocks-in-mobile-devices

Thankyou Jeff! That's fantastic. (changed my username finally on here, sorry for confusion)

I'm marking this as fixed, I think #1626618: Unset regions in mobile, move blocks in mobile, and provide a global mobile context is about as close as we're gonna get, and its pretty good I think - the feature vs performance is very good, which is always my main concern when doing rad things like this in a theme.