[dev] Remove multi-column portal blocks?

[Chuck Hagenbuch]

Quoting Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>:

> A reason could be, at least for me, that German tends to have much
> longer words than English. If I would have to put the weather block in
> one column, I probably wouldn't get more than two columns in the
> portal, currently I get three. Now, *that* is wasted space (for all
> the other blocks), at least for me personally.

Fair enough.

> I thought about that earlier a few times, and my thoughts always got
> stuck in that dilemma. I think the possibility to expand and shrink
> blocks is what it makes Horde's portal superiour to others. You can
> create much more flexible layouts. On the other hand, having
> maintained the portal block code a few times in the past, I know what
> a pita the code is. And it's definately not the most user friendly
> interface either.

What if we were to split the code into the current layout - a  
GridLayoutManager - and add a new driver, a ColumnLayoutManager? The  
disadvantage is that then we have two layouts to maintain, and it  
doesn't simplify anything. The advantage is that we can have the  
drag-n-drop for columns without sacrificing the possibility to use the  
current grid. And this sort of layout managing code could very easily  
be used to replace the current layout code in Giapeto or other  
CMS-like solutions.

I might be inspired enough to work on this today if folks like the idea. ;)

-chuck

-- 
"we are plastered to the windshield of the bus that is time." - Chris