By Anonymous (not verified) on

I've noticed that as present, drupal is only capable of assigning either left or right position to a block. Are there any modifications planned to support more than 2 areas for blocks, perhaps by assigning either left,right or a value from 0 (or 1) to 9? I have plans for a 4 column layout, which at present I'm having to hardcode one of the columns into the theme itself, which will technically work but I'd much prefer it if I could assign blocks to that column as it makes things so much easier.

If there are no future plans to incorporate this, could somebody give me a hint as to whether the amount of work involved to get this running would be extreme? If not I'd be more than happy to make the necessary code modifications and supply the diffs to the dev mailing list.

Thanks.

Comments

dries’s picture

dries commented

I'd like to see the block placement mechanism evolve as well. Being able to create a 4-column layout should be possible. As I see it now, the block placement logic should be theme specific. Trying to define a generic mechanism to place blocks across themes will never really work.

I can create a theme which has, say, 8 block containers and which looks nothing like a column-based theme. I should then be able to place blocks on my theme's settings page. Drupal's task is to ease the "setting" and "getting" of theme-specific block placements.

It would be great if you could prototype some code to get over the current shortcomings. I suggest you subscribe to the drupal-devel mailing list; I'd be happy to work with you on this.

ax’s picture

ax commented

http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/contributions/sandbox/killes/blocks/?cvsroot=contrib.

see also

dries’s picture

dries commented

Personally, I don't think Gerhard's block placements patches are the way to go unless the "regions" are theme-specific.

ax’s picture

ax commented

from the README:

Attempt at arbitrary block placement.

add

  function regions() {
    return array("left", "right", "top right", "top left");
  }

to the class definition of your theme and apply patches
to block.module and theme.inc.
dries’s picture

dries commented

My wrong. I'll reconsider Gerhard's patches then.

Artti’s picture

Artti commented

Are these patches still valid or has this feature been integrated into the core some way?

TIA

arnabdotorg’s picture

arnabdotorg commented

See http://drupal.org/node/16216