Overview

Panels Everywhere (PE) is intended to be a complete replacement for your theme's page templates (page.tpl.php) in the same way that Panels can be a complete replacement for your site's node templates (node.tpl.php). The difference between Panels and Panels Everywhere is that PE is "aware" of page elements (like menus) that are not visible to Panels or node templates. Structurally, PE eliminates all regions that would normally exist in a template (Header, Sidebars, Footer, etc.) and utilizes a nodes Content region. Within the content region, PE builds the entire page structure utilizing PE's "site_template". This site_template (that is turned on through the PE settings) builds those regions that would otherwise appear on your page (Header, Sidebars, Footer, etc.).

The advantages this approach provides are:

1. eliminates dependence on Drupal's block system for content presentation (although blocks can still be used as they can in Panels)
2. provides Panels's robust context related tools for presenting content

PE is best utilized when building a new site. In this case, you can create a site template file for your theme (which will serve the function of the page.tpl.php template) and then customize it as needed (with regions, etc).

With an existing site, implementing PE is a little more complicated. In this case, you may need to have PE work in conjunction with your existing theme. For example, you may want to have PE take over one set of pages while your theme's existing page template files continue to control all other pages. This approach allows you to use implement PE in a 'stepped' manner so that you can migrate portions of your site to the PE framework at a time.

Content is added and controlled in the same manner as you would for other Panels pages. If you are not familiar with how Panels content works, please take some time to read/watch some of the excellent Panels 3 tutorials available online.