Problem

I did not find the way to control the layout of responsive panels on a smartphone, in portrait orientation.

If I understood how it is supposed to work in smartphone-portrait mode, "panels are all 100% width and stacked". Sounds logical, but who controls the order in the stack ? Currently, on my site, "left" comes first, on top of "Center" and I found no way to reorder the stack, through Corolla settings user interface...

Comments

Jeff Burnz’s picture

Jeff Burnz commented

Responsive design typically does not reorder the source order, which is what is controlling the order - the logical order in which the content prints in the template.

Now, if you have a left region above content one assumes you are using Panels, in which case it is possible to use Browscap CTools to switch stuff on or off (panel panes), depending on the device (not the orientation, its a device detection technology).

Switching something like source order on orientation change is just a bad idea - sure if you can do it with CSS AND get it to work consistently (a major challenge and ultimately fragile), however to reflow the layout/source order on orientation change would mean a page reload, which is a not a very good thing for end users on data rate connections.

blekc’s picture

blekc commented

Thank you Jeff, for your clear answer and for your advice to have a look at Browscap. It was on my list and you moved it to the top ;)

I was so absorbed trying to memorize where each setting takes place that I forgot to look at the source ! And I was so much thinking about the "center" panel as a (my !) "main content" block that I didn't imagine it could not be generated first :)

What i still don't understand is why it is not possible to have portrait and landscape settings for smartphone in "Panels and Gpanels" since we have both for tablets (in panels/Gpannels) and both exist at the global layout level ?

Jeff Burnz’s picture

Jeff Burnz commented

What i still don't understand is why it is not possible to have portrait and landscape settings for smartphone in "Panels and Gpanels" since we have both for tablets (in panels/Gpannels) and both exist at the global layout level ?

Good question, the short answer is to reduce complexity - both in the UI and the backend code. I concluded that the UI for such a thing could be overwhelming for end users (its big already), however that doesn't mean this could never happen - what we have at the moment is a first iteration of responsive panels in a theme and it can evolve, get better and maybe have more options.

blekc’s picture

blekc commented

I have no idea of the added complexity, coding this extra feature. All I can say is that i guess it would not overwhelm end users. Symmetry an unity make things easier and, I my own opinion, adding more layout control for the most constrained situation (smarphone portrait) would be valuable.

Anyway, what you call a "first iteration" is a damn great one, yet !

Thx

blekc’s picture

blekc commented
Status: Active » Closed (works as designed)