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ADVANCED: Developing Panopoly Apps

Panopoly Apps are portable bundles of functionality that are built on top of the Panopoly framework. This means that all Panopoly Apps are built with the Features module and extended by the Apps module. Panopoly is a Panels-driven paradigm and thus its apps are as well.

Why Panopoly as a Platform?

Start on the 10th floor instead of on the ground.

As a platform, Panopoly offers many key advantages when it comes to application development.

  • Drupal Plus - Panopoly's core set of apps gets you started on the 10th floor of development by providing simplified user interfaces such as: a WYSIWIG editor, powerful search, better layout, content management, and common site building elements. All of it can be spun up in just minutes.
  • Reusable Elements - Panopoly ships with a plethora of common and reusable content elements such as images, links, maps, videos, tables, spotlights and more, all of which can be easily incorporated and used in your own app.
  • Core Features - Panopoly also provides some universal components such as permissions, a default tagging taxonomy, user roles, and common attributes such as "Featured Content". This means you don't have to waste time rebuilding common site components. Add to or extend core ones.
  • Panels Panels Panels - With Panels you get a great user interface, easily customized layouts and a powerful content authoring toolkit. The best part is that you can panelize your custom content type or entity, and you get all of this functionality with a few simple clicks.
  • Apps Integration - Using the power of the Apps modules developers can easily integrate both default content for their apps as well as configuration options.

To see these principles in action check out some of the third party apps that have already been built for Panopoly:

Please see the pages below for a tutorial on building a simple app for Panopoly.

Step 1: Build Content Types and Entities

The first step in creating your own Panopoly App is to build the content type(s) and entities that will drive most of your functionality.

Step 2: Build Content Panes with Views

Now that you have created your custom content types and entities it's time to create different ways of organizing and displaying them.

Step 3: Summon the Power of Panels

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

Step 4: Export With Features

Now that we have built our content types, entities and content panes and also successfully summoned the power of Panels we should have both

Step 5: Integrate with Apps

The final step in our journey is to turn our feature into a full-blown app by integrating it with the Apps API.

Guide maintainers

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