With the power of Panels, you never have to make a .tpl file ever again! Okay, that's not true at all, but what Panels does give you is the ability you to create Drupal aware layouts that can be reused between dozens of other sites. If you create custom Panel pages per-content type, per-node, per-anything (instead of custom .tpl's for each) you will significantly reduce the number of .tpls you have to keep create and keep track of while saving a significant amount of time. Say goodbye to crowded templates folders!

This session is perfect for:

• People who are sick and tired of creating the same sort of .tpls for every site
• People who can't remember which .tpl they need to edit for XYZ
• People who want to create custom Panel layouts
• People who want to make their existing layouts more reusable

Lately it's been fairly common to require only page.tpl.php and a few .tpl files for views. Don't believe me? Here's a screenshot showing all of the .tpl files from a theme I recently made. That's four .tpls, including views!

Panel layouts are easy to make in the gui layout builder provided by the Panels module, but unfortunately it seems to have several drawbacks. This session will teach you how to make a panel layout from scratch the most performance-minded and efficient way possible - in code.

Panels also gives you the flexibility to add classes and even pre-configured styles to any region or pane. Ever wanted to make all of the panes in a region have rounded corners? How about throwing in some jQuery to create tabs from all of the panes in a region? Easy-peazy!