Content display

Composite Layout allows your nodes to be displayed in complex layouts. Currently, two and three column layouts are provided. You can also add other nodes, blocks, and even CCK fields to your node's layout. The content area of your node is divided into zones and you decide what should appear in those zones. Zones are essentially the same as Drupal blocks, but they apply to nodes rather than the entire site.

You can think of Composite Layout as Drupal blocks for nodes.

There is overlap in functionality between Composite Layout and Panels. Both address the issue of complex layouts, but each has a different approach.

Here is an informal comparison:

• Panels is more powerful and flexible (I think, I'm not a Panels expert).
• Composite Layout is simpler (I hope).
• The user interface is different. You may prefer one or the other.
• Composite Layout applies on content types, so it can be turned on for any node. Furthermore, you can have more than one composite layout node type.
• If you use the Content Construction Kit, Composite Layout allows you to manage the layout of your CCK fields.

Otherwise, it will probably come down to personal preference as to which is more suitable.

Demo

*** NOTE: You've seen that V4 is out? Please read the message in issues. ***

Taxonomy Router pages Taxonomy vocabularies/terms (the module treats them as very similar items) as a list of terms or nodes.

This kind of functionality keeps appearing in taxonomy modules. So now it is a separate module which may, for code minimalists, prove useful in itself.

RSS feeds are only updated once in a while by feed readers. Comments might be updated anytime.

A small module that allows image nodes that use both image module and imagefield module to become media entries in RSS feeds.

Tabs component for the GUI project.

Example:

This module is now obsolete. I no longer maintain it.

Drupal 5 doesnt have a nice easy way for module developers to drop .tpl.php files in their module directories for use with modules that do a lot of output. I have no idea why. Drupal 6 has this but 5 does not. So I've created a module that allows module users to mimic the features of drupal 6 without the need to modify drupal 5 core files. It's not identical or perfect but its about as close as you can get without actually upgrading to 6 which may not be a path you can take because maybe some of your modules dont have a D6 version. Also, this system doesnt lock you into a '$content' variable like the normal drupal page template does. It allows you to create the '$content' using the $vars variable. $vars is an array that contains values that come straight from your module. There is also a custom_template.php file that allows themers to inject stuff into the $vars variable as well just like they would with drupal's template.php. Here's a small list of what this module allows you to do:

Create template files in your own Module directory (these can then be overridden by files of same name in current template dir as usual)
Send variable directly to a template (something not possible in d5 and I dont even think d6 does this either, though not sure on that).