Page Layouts

Regions

In Drupal, content is placed into predefined regions. Each region offers different types of content.

What content goes into each region?

Alerts

Alerts communicate moderate to highly urgent site wide information. The information consists of critical, time-sensitive warnings or notifications across every page so that users see it wherever they visit the site. The alert should be visually distinct from the rest of the website content. This region stretches the full width of the page.

Messages

This area is designated for page specific messages and alerts, like a banner communicating weather-related closures. It can also be used for large hero images or horizontal secondary navigation.

Sidebar first (secondary navigation)

The first sidebar is limited to navigation that consists of hierarchical vertical lists of text links (ie, menus). Items that don't fit in that category, like "Need Help" buttons or staff photos, likely go into the second sidebar (related content).

Main content

This area contains the central content of the webpage. Typically, it will be text with links and images, but it can also contain lists, tables, videos, accordions, and many other UI elements.

Sidebar second (related content)

This area contains content that is secondary, but directly related to the main content. For example on a page about a Library space this area could be a list of events that take place in the space, or a list of staff that may help users with information reserving or answering questions about the space.

Above footer

This area provides a space for promotional content or content related to the main content, but is too large to fit into the second sidebar.

What about the header and footer?

The header and footer are managed externally to the Drupal website. This is because the header and footer are assets that are shared with many other Library applications including the Catalog, Quick Search, Reserve a Room, and others. You cannot alter the header or footer in anyway using Drupal.

What if a region has no content?

Empty regions are not loaded. Since a page must, at the minimum, contain content in the main region, that region will expand to fill the empty space. For example, if a page has a left sidebar and main content, but no right sidebar then the main content region will expand to include the space not filled by the second sidebar. If there are no right or left sidebars then the main content region will fill the full width of the page. This process is automatic.

Where does the page title go?

The page title (<h1>) belongs in the main content region. When creating content in Drupal the page title will appear automatically in the correct place.