Roughly which month is Panels 6.x expected ready (enough) for production sites?

So first off, I can't commit to a clear answer on this because it just wouldn't be fair (to me or the community). And I CANNOT recommend the use of alpha1 in a production site. Keep in mind that for _most_ things the alpha release is actually quite stable. I personally was expecting a deluge of issues after releasing alpha1, but we only got a few - and given the number of people who were waiting, that's an indicator that the release is pretty solid.

What I CAN say, though, is that the things remaining for me/Earl to do are actually fairly few before the D6 branch is as stable as the D5 branch. Those things are:

1. Update contexts and arguments for consistency and to ensure they're behaving properly.
2. Step through the panels_page master loader system (the thing that handles all path overrides at runtime) one last time to ensure it's loading contexts properly.
3. Iron out the bugs that people have posted to the queue (there aren't many, but I also don't expect there to be many more that are D6-unique)

Those are things liable to affect you regardless of what you need with Panels. There are also a few things that are still just plain todos:

1. Reimplement admin previews of panel_pages.
2. Fix the on-view admin tabs for panel nodes and panel pages.
3. Context plugins for forms are virtually unported at the moment, and need fairly considerable revisiting.

But that's about it. I was hoping to make it through most of the things in the first list this weekend, but I got diverted by working on Panels benchmarks, so I ended up basically just queue-cleaning. Earl and I have agreed that we really need to push out the next release of Panels for D6 (alpha2, or if we cross off enough things on those lists, beta1), and to move D5 towards an actual release. So expect the next release (for both versions) very soon - within the next week or two.

IMO you can start builidng your site, but there are definite hiccups. YOur ability to actually build your site is going to depend on your patience with us; we're having trouble coming up with enough time to really address the bugs in a timely manner.

dude, considering the massive progress you just made on views you oughta take a vacation!!

...of course, now that views has hit a stable milestone, i suspect that volume of d6 installs and migrations will start to accelerate, leading many folks back to the panels module!

in the interim, there's an interesting composite layout module which is kind of like a *very* simple 'per node' panel management tool and folks may find it useful for simply customizations (not by content type, but literlaly per node - as in, custom front page configuration or whatever) but it is NOT panels by any stretch of the imagination...

Agreed - I'm probably typical, in that I had left Panels until the last possible moment in my shiny new D6 site since it's layout and not site structure or design. Now, however, you want bug reports, I give you bug reports =)

hmm, i see activity buzzing over views bonus pack, which makes extensive use of panels - a 6x.dev release just rolled out today...wondering if there's an update coming for panels - or alternatively, if folks are interested in testing out, would the dev suggest (on *non production* sites), using the dev release to test and report back bugs etc?

I have another question pertaining to the development of D6 Panels. I have seen it mentioned that you are developing a Panels 3 at the moment and I wanted to know if it will be compatible with panels I create with Panels 2-alpha2. I wanted to start developing my site but I don't want to begin building a site I'll need to rebuild in a couple months.

Krispy: Where have you seen references to Panels 3? I can't find any so far.

This is really interesting - is there a roadmap?

@cpelham http://drupal.org/cvs?commit=159306

I also found this (searching via Google rather than with Drupal.org somewhat lame search:

Panels 3 UI Design Thread
http://groups.drupal.org/node/15854

Exciting!

Yes, we will be providing upgrade paths to the D6 3.x branch for both 6.x-2.x and 5.x-2.x, so feel free to move ahead.

Well I know I'm using alpha software but I'll ask anyway. Panels is so useful that to do without is criminal.

Everything to do w ajax isn't working: /panels/ajax/configure/1/3 for example spits out:

{ "output": "\x3cform action=\"/panels/ajax/configure/1/3\" accept-charset=\"UTF-8\" method=\"post\" id=\"panels-content-config-form\"\x3e\n\x3cdiv\x3e\x3cdiv class=\"form-item\" id=\"edit-configuration-style-wrapper\"\x3e\n \x3clabel for=\"edit-configuration-style\"\x3ePane style: \x3c/label\x3e\n \x3cselect name=\"configuration[style]\" class=\"form-select\" id=\"edit-configuration-style\" ...... etc

Am I missing something obvious? I can do everything but select items on the layout page, add items, move them around. none of that works.

Hi fortressgame!
For me was the same issue with ajax. I switch off devel theme developer and everything works fine for me. I hope this helps you too :)

I'm wondering what the status is on a migration path from D5 panels to D6. Anything in the works? Is it a priority? Or should I just plan to completely re-input all my panels for the upgrade to D6?

Thanks

I am working on a fairly large project that intends to make extensive use of panels with a launch date sometime in May. What is the road map or likelihood for a stable 6.x panels within the next few months? What can the community do to help speed this process along? Is there a specific place or way that the alpha 3 is unstable or is it just not thoroughly tested enough?

Thanks

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subscribe. I want to go on record as saying I just don't know how you do it.

You manage to maintain two different versions of panels and still making it kick a**!

I need other modules which depend on panels, but I am really looking forward to upgading to panels 3 :)

will there be a panels 2 d5 to panels 3 upgrade path?

OK, to clarify, because we haven't, and it's not like the project page is up-to-date...

Panels2 for D6 will NEVER be stable. I was hoping alpha3 would be as far as it would go, but there are a few other issues I'd like to fix before it's completely dead-ended. So maybe an alpha4.

The future of Panels for D6 is the Panels3 branch. We haven't put a release on the project page, but it's where all the new hotness is. Panels2 is just straggling along, more or less a patchwork solution. The reason for this is challenges related to the menu system and replicating D5's panels_page functionality in D6. Really, though, neither merlin or I thought panels_page was the best way to be doing things (allowing people to define system paths from the interface is a bad idea, and the wrong way to allow flexibility), so we took those problems with the menu system and branched a new version that handles it all much more intelligently. Panels3.

The hold-up with getting more Panels2 releases is basically constraints on my time, which are many right now, since I'm in the midst of a master's program that has nothing at all to do with computers. Earl can speak more precisely on the constraints to Panels3, but I can generally assert that the constraints are just needing more people to look at it and give feedback.

Do we want to be using 2 or 3?

Why are you guys creating CTools? Wouldn't your time be better spent contributing to core Drupal development so that you can introduce the improvements to drupal_get_form, etc? It feels like duplicated effort.

More importantly, Drupal 6.0 was released about a year ago. How much longer do you think it will be until there's a stable Panels module for it?

Thanks,
Thomas Allen

keep up the good work!

Hopefully panels 3 will be released soon, can't wait.

Panels is so useful that to do without is criminal.

Except for the fact that you have to be a rocket scientist in order to make sense of it, this is definitely not a module for the everyday user.

@Miraploy - 2, but 3 ASAP - which, unless you're particularly strong-stomached, means until we put the release from the 3.x branch on the project page.

@tmallen - Re: release date. Read my VERY first response in this thread. The same proscription applies. Re: ctools, etc. No, we're not wasting our time, and it's not duplicated effort. Frankly, the suggestion is a bit insulting; either you don't understand the core dev process and/or you don't know the problems ctools is actually solving and needs to solve.

@darumaki - this is an issue queue. That's a discussion for g.d.o, the forums, or IRC.

Not complaining, only useful for the perspectives, as so much in D6 is now falling into place these weeks.

Any update on expectations about when Panels 6.x can be used on production sites?

Having the greatest respect for the time and process the developers are in. Only asking for a very rough and non-committing answer if possible. Practical with an impression about the expectations of the main developers - months rather than weeks?

I second that request, can we expect to have a production site ready version of Panels3 any time this spring?

Good luck with your masters! It's going to come in really handy for you to know all this drupal stuff and whatever else you are mastering at. Humans evovled!

As for panels - I've played with them before in D5 but not D6. I have several sites running D6 without panels waiting for a later version and it appears to have come in the 2.x branch.

However, seeing as 3.0 is going to be the way of the future, I'll just start with that.

Once again, good luck with everything this month!

subscribe - thanks very much for all the work put into this.

I fully respect the right of people to work how they like, but back in the day Earl always said that it was ok to work off of dev versions of Panels 2 and that he would *try* and make sure there was an upgrade path from dev versions (of course he added that using dev was still a bit caveat emptor, but he made the effort, and ultimately it worked well). I believe this was really effective for getting lots of testers and contributors for Panels 2 as it went from alpha, to beta, and onward.

Without an official Drupal6 version, the timeline for one, or the ability to use dev versions without painting oneself into a corner it seems like that is going to cut down on the ability of many devs to participate.

UPDATE: Eh, please ignore me here. I shouldn't jump in a queue of a module I actually really like, and have not contributed to in a while and groan and moan. :p

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looking forward to use Panels 3 for Drupal 6.

@Caleb G: He's been working hard on Panels 3 and it's nearly past Panels 2. People just need to be patient and give him a little time to get Panels 3 to where it's recommended over Panels 2. At that point, people who want to use devs should be ok, with all the usual caveats that go along with using dev versions.

I don't know if there will be an upgrade path from 2 to 3 but, really, it's not that hard to assemble a panels page. Even if you have to rebuild it as a delegator thing, it's not that traumatic.

Michelle

You're all so great! Thanks for your works!

I'd like to echo Michelle's comment #32. I used Panels 2 through every step of the dev process and frequently needed to rebuild my panels due to some mishap/bug or another, but it really only takes a very few minutes to rebuild most any panel. Just do your changes on a local machine rather than live.

Here's a workflow tip for when you want to change a panel:
Open the panel to be modified in two different browser tabs or windows.
Edit only one of them. If something goes wrong and you need to rebuild it, you can still look at the settings in the other tab/window to see how you had each pane set up. This can save you some time and guess work.

Alternately, you can export your panels before modifying to give you a record of the settings.

I'm working on a new site, should I consider the "Nodes_pane" (panels_node_content) module deprecated in 6.x-3.0 as specified on the panels admin page ?
If that's the case, is there any plan to support contexts inside panels_node ?
I don't want to start on the wrong foot.

I wrote some bad news on Ctools page. Please check http://drupal.org/node/352804#comment-1241196 and if anybody have a similar situation please inform Ctools. This can impede with whole 3.0 movement, if our situation is not a false alarm.

Panels is marvellous anyway.

Thank you.

If you really want to know the path of Panels 3/CTools see my TODO list http://groups.drupal.org/node/18765 -- and developers are free to attempt to offer patches.

I expect there will be 2 more alpha releases and then a beta release. I don't have a time frame because I'm never right when I guess.

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It looks like the feature set is markedly extended. Is there any discussion or exposition, anywhere, of the new features and how they're conceived to work? E.g., what's a "delegator page"? This isn't really a place to answer that question, but it would be great if we could see that written down somewhere.

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subscribing (hopefully, I just need to comment to subscribe?, I don't see any checkbox).

POINT BLANK:

WOULD -you- use Panels 6.x for a production site that MUST launch on March 1st? I am getting fatal errors everywhere I go. I will provide a bug list later, if they are not already reported.

@gh0st25: I think you answered your own question. If you are "getting fatal errors everywhere [you] go" then it's obviously not far enough along for you to be using. Panels can be used in a huge variety of ways. For more simple uses it may be just fine as is. For more complex uses, maybe not. There is no one answer to this question.

Michelle

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fwiw, we are currently using 6.x-3.0-alpha2, the only issue we are having is sometimes the buttons for settings and visibility within the panels aren't completely visible. it seems to be working for our purposes at this point

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At this point I'm guessing beta in April. (I'd guess sooner but DrupalCon DC is in the beginning of March and I expect not much will get done then).

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gregarios moved the issue to another project ;)

So i'm moving it back

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Ok, this is answered and fixed. Please stop bumping it. You don't need to subscribe, just read #48.

Michelle

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@DjC4: There was no reason to re-open this. The question was asked and answered and the issue is closed.

Michelle

is it really that unstable to use already? i have been playing around with the 2.0 alpha and everything seems to be fine. no errors or crashes yet.

@impete82: The 2.x branch is going away soon. The 3.x branch is still somewhat unstable, though getting better all the time.

Michelle

FWIW, I've found the latest 3.0 alpha to be really unstable and extremely difficult to use. I don't recommend even considering for production at this point, unless your production application is very non-critical. (As in, you can live with just totally losing that page forever.)

Oh, I definitely don't recommend using it for production until beta at least and even then use it cautiously.

Michelle

Oops. Sorry 'bout that. :)

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Instead of subscribing to closed issues, why not subscribe to Planet and keep up with the Drupal world for items such as http://www.angrydonuts.com/panels-3-approaching-beta

Michelle

Not that I have been doing the bumping - but thanks for this link to angry donuts - first I had come across it. cheers

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