Step 3 is when we summon the power of Panels to add a ton of functionality to our app with very little effort. This will allow us to create specific disambiguation pages, such as the main page of a news sections, layouts for specific content types and/or entities and the view modes for these. This will also allow us to set sane and useful defaults for site builders to use out of the box while still maintaining the awesome customization of Panels for use by more advanced users. Like a good rug, Panels really ties the room together.

Page Manager

Structure->Pages

If you are creating a disambiguation page such as a news homepage or a listing of your new content type you are going to want to set this up through Page Manager.

In the Page Manager interface you are going to want to add a new custom page and select Panel as the variant type. This will lead you to a comprehensive interface with many settings. First time app builders are really only going to need to focus on the following areas, but you should play around with the other settings as they are very powerful as well:

Variants->Panel->General

You can do some cool things here but the most important thing is to make sure you have selected the In-Place Editor as your renderer. Use of the In-Place editor is really a must for any Panopoly App.

Use IPE

Variants->Panel->Layout

This is where you can specify the default layout of your page. The layout provides the structure of your page and into which you can place the views displays and entities you created in Step 2 along with all of the reusable components provided by Panopoly.
Layout

Variants->Panel->Content

Beyond setting the IPE as your renderer this is really the most important thing to configure for you app. Here you will fill out the layout you selected above with the content panes you created in Step 2 and with a bunch of other Panopoly provided panes.

Page Content

This interface is also your opportunity to leverage all of the settings you exposed for your content panes.

Content Settings
Popup Settings

Within a few minutes of configuration and building on Steps 1 and 2 you can easily build complex and customized pages like this:

Finished!

Panelizer

Configuration->Panelizer

It is probably best to think of Panelizer as a kind of Page Manager for entities. Like Page Manager it allows you to set the renderer, layout and content for each entity type however Panelizer takes things to the next level. Now the layout and content for individual entities can be customized. Want to add a video to a specific node or a list of related content to a taxonomy term? Panelizer says: NO BIG DEAL.

Entities can be panelized in the Panelizer configuration. Panelizing entities is highly encouraged for your Panopoly App. Make sure that you select both "panelize" and "provide default panel" for your entity and all its view modes.

Panelizer Settings

Each panelized display has four operations associated with it: Settings, Context, Layout and Content. These actually correspond almost exactly with the Page Manager configurations listed above so you should use the schedule below and follow the associated Page Manager instructions.

  • Panelizer: Settings -> Page Manger: Variants:Panel:General
  • Panelizer: Layout -> Page Manger: Variants:Panel:Layout
  • Panelizer: Content -> Page Manger: Variants:Panel:Content

The remaining operation, context, is a little more advanced and will be covered in subsequent documentation for building more advanced Apps.

View Modes

As you may have surmised, panelizer also overrides the core entity "view mode" handling that is found in the "Manage Display" tab found on each entity's configuration. This allows us to use the power of panes on specific build modes. The following four view modes are available by default in Panopoly.

  • Full Page Override: Allows you to customize the layout and content of the entire page.
  • Default: Allows you to customize the layout and content of the "full" display of a given entity. An example would be the placement of a node's fields into a two column design with text on the left and images on the right.
  • Teaser: Allows you to customize the layout and content of a basic "Teaser" display for a given entity. An example would be a featured image, some text and a read more link.
  • Featured: Allows you to customize the layout and content of a "Featured" display for a given entity. An example would be a large image and brief byline.

VIEWMODES
VIEW MODES

Sane Defaults

Panopoly Apps are very much like Drupal itself in that they should be both products and frameworks. For that reason apps should make an effort to provide sane defaults in terms of layouts, content panes, views, view modes, etc so that a user can install an app and get started right away.