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Replacing the default module positions |
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Module positions are more or less just area
markers that a template uses to tell the Mambo framework that it wants to
display any module with "X" set as its position in that
area. If no modules exist for that position (or area), it is left
blank. Likewise, modules whose position does not appear in the template,
do not appear.
This creates a very flexible system that allows developers to put any module
anywhere in the template. The problem is that some of the default
positions may not make sense to you or your end users. For example, why
do some templates have a USER3 position in the header of the page? This
is not some secret Mambo standard, it is just what one template developer chose to do.
So if the template positions that you have to choose from do not make sense in
your situation, there is nothing wrong with completely replacing them with
template positions that make sense to you.
In a recent project, I completely removed all of the default module
positions (found in Site -> Template Manager -> Module Positions)
by blanking them out and them replaced them with ones that would make
sense to my site managers (end users).
The following is a basic layout of the Module Positions that I included for the
project:
| | Top | | |
Left1
Left2
Left3
| Main Body |
Right1
Right2
Right3
| | | Bottom | |
Also, when these Module
Positions where entered into Mambo (see Site -> Template Manager
->
Module Positions), they were put in the order that we wanted them to
display in the Position drop down when editing a module (1 = TOP, 2 =
BOTTOM, 3 = LEFT1
.... 7 = RIGHT2, 8 = RIGHT3).
The results of making this change are as follows:
- I have only the module positions
that I need.
- Only the module positions that are actually being used appear in the Position drop-down when editing a module.
- The modules positions that do appear in the Position drop-down
are in a logical order based on the template (we chose top, bottom,
left, right).
- My site managers can easily
follow where each of the module positions are located in the template.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 08 February 2005 )
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Site Layout / CSS 
