The road to D6 Panels2

Yep, we all want it: Panels2 in D6. Unfortunately, as the long and ongoing discussion in the http://drupal.org/node/223994 "Port of Panels 2.x branch to d6" thread indicates, it's quite a task. So, in the tradition of Views and Project, I'm setting up this wiki page as a means of publicizing what needs to be done in hope that it'll attract some help from folks who are willing and able.

First - stages of the plan!

Although there is that 'port to d6' issue open, merlin and I have agreed that neither of us will be working directly on the port until Panels2 reaches RC status. When Panels2 went from alpha to beta, we guaranteed that there would be no more changes to the existing API - but additions were fine, as long as they were backwards-compatible. Once we reach RC, however, the freeze extends to pretty much everything except bug fixes, and we ourselves begin working on the port to D6. From there, we'll keep up with patches but all our conscious effort goes into the port.

I had initially hoped that beta4 would be the last beta release, but it looks like there will be one more after beta4, and then we'll be in RC. After the port, we have a lot of knock-your-socks-off ideas for Panels 3, but we can leave those for another thread. So, to put it graphically:

5.x-beta3 ==> beta4 ==> beta5 ==> RC1 ==> RCs... ==> 5.x RELEASE!! ==> 5.x-2.1
                                   |
                               6.x port ==> 6.x RCs... ==> 6.x RELEASE!! ==> 6.x-2.1
                                                             |
                                                           6.x-3.x-ALPHA ==> (FUTURE OF PANELS)

The road to RC

So, what's it gonna take to get us to 5.x-2.x-RC1? Well, there are several outstanding issues, although the number is definitely dwindling. Here's a rough list:

• Finish coding the rest of the new hidden panes feature; need to create an issue on this. DONE!
• Resolve the http://drupal.org/node/238139 "An error has occurred" js bug. Note that changes committed to -dev (for beta4) add some specificity to the JS errors emitted by panels, so we can hope that the error reporting on this might get a little more specific. UPDATE: There's some promising recent error report that have linked presence of tabs in other theme/module code causing some of these errors...
• Improve dependency js in panels menus so that forms are more interactive and provide better feedback - http://drupal.org/node/205713 "panels_views UI improvements"
• Safeguards against infinite recursion issues need to be instituted: http://drupal.org/node/259752 "Recursion ugliness..." for example.
• The newly-added per-display title feature in -dev needs rethinking and improvement: http://drupal.org/node/258817 "Improve workflow for new per-display title"
• Panels nodes need to be equipped with a better, smarter set of contexts; somewhat related is http://drupal.org/node/258383 "Pass Context configuration with context to add/edit of blocks"
• Fix bug causing inappropriate 'new-#' numbering of panes when a new panels_page display is generated by delinking a specific type from the default. (Need to add issue)
• Introduce a little more wisdom to the panels_view configuration form - for example, adding views in 'page' view mode pretty much never ends well.
• Allow styles to be applied not only per-panel, but per-pane. http://drupal.org/node/256461
• Where needed, fix the existing node autoselect js boxes, and consider providing more/providing some easy interfaces for other cts to implement.

That's an adequate list, at least to start with. Contacting me via IRC (nick is sdboyer) is probably the quickest and easiest way to let me know if you want to help, or if there's something else that should really be on there. Or...just edit this page!.

Postponed!

• Consider rewriting the block content type to use the new visibility declarations, at least in part to provide a functioning use case. [Let's punt this for after 2.0 -- Merlin]
• Allow panels_page to create its own user_access() perms that can be used to allow users to edit one specific panel page instead of all of them. (Need to add issue) [Let's punt this for after 2.0 -- Merlin]

(Potentially) worthy, but in need of work

As we separate the wheat from the chaff in the final charge towards D5 Panels2 RC1, this is a list of issues that have some merit to them, but the Panels devs don't have time to attend to at the moment. Help is, of course, welcome!

We've moved this list into the Panels issue queue itself: Worthy issues!