[Phpwebsite-developers] Need help overriding the layout module

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Inspired by this site http://www.csszengarden.com I have spent the last
couple of days designing a phpws theme using only CSS for both design
elements AND content placement.

I started by creating a theme.tpl file that looked something like this.
(stuff in between <head></head> tags not withstanding)

======================

<div id="container">
    <div id="left">
        {LEFT_COL_TOP}
        {LEFT_COL_MID}
        {LEFT_COL_BOTTOM}
    </div>
    <div id="main">
        {TOP}
        {BODY}
        {BOTTOM}
    </div>
    <div id="right">
        {RIGHT_COL_TOP}
        {RIGHT_COL_MID}
        {RIGHT_COL_BOTTOM}
    </div>
</div>

======================

Then changed my default_box.tpl to be

----------------------
<div id="defaultbox">
    <p class="title">{TITLE}</p>
    <p class="content">{CONTENT}</p>
</div>
----------------------

After that, I created a number of other boxes for each phpws "element"

----------------------
<div id="minicalendar">
    <p class="title">{TITLE}</p>
    <p class="content">{CONTENT}</p>
</div>
----------------------
<div id="adminmenu">
    ...
</div>
----------------------
<div id="menu">
    ...
</div>
----------------------
Etc...

Using the layout module to set the custom boxstyle for each "element" I
could then manipulate the look and feel of each through the css, plus
specify the location/position.

An example from my style.css for the calendar is

======================
#minicalendar {
        position: absolute;
        top: 50px;
        left: 560px;
        display: block;
}

#minicalendar .title {
        display: none;
}
======================

This means that my mini calendar appears in the upper right hand corner of
my site (and actually on top of a nice top banner image specified in the
css) even if the mini calendar is actually in the {LEFT_COL_MID} theme
variable.

SO...

Not to bore you with the specifics of css2 absolute and relate positioning
tags (http://www.stopdesign.com/also/articles/absolute/) but eventually the
standard theme variables {LEFT_COL_TOP}, {LEFT_COL_MID} etc became more of a
hindrance than a help.  If I wanted to specify an absolute position for the
<div id="left"> tag (see theme.tpl example above) but wanted my minicalendar
to appear at the top of the page, I was forced to move the the minicalendar
element from the Left side to the Right side using the Layout Control Panel
"Move Boxes" option.  If you can't already guess, that's now out of control.
Since the position of the minicalendar content is controlled through the css
by the <div id="minicalendar"> from a custom "minicalendar_box.tpl" template
file, but the layout module's move buttons appear outside of that div tag,
the minicalendar might appear on one side of the page, and the move options
for that content might appear some place all together different, and its
impossible to match up which move option goes with which element.

Essentially, the Move Boxes option of the layout module do not apply to what
I am trying to do, nor do I expect them to apply.  I started to look for a
way to free myself for the move boxes concept of the layout module.  I read
in the old ./mod/layout/docs/theme_creation.txt file that phpws will default
boxes to the {BODY} theme variable if it gets confused about where to place
"elements".  Well this is really all I want - just to have phpws output all
content to the one {BODY} variable, then I can use the Layout module to
simply change the boxstyle for each "element" and control their layout
through the .css

Well I tried to create a theme.tpl file with only a {BODY} theme variable -
but am still not sure what to do about the transfers.tpl file.  I first
tried simply

body:2:2

Then tried just having

body:1:1

But in both cases I noticed that some elements like the mini calendar and
admin menu now appear twice in the final HTML output and I couldn't figure
out why or how to prevent this.

If anyone has made it this far do you have any ideas to achieve a single
theme variable {BODY} in the theme.tpl file and what a corresponding
transfers.tpl file would look like?  I just need to prevent the double
output of some of the "elements".

Thanks

Jonathan Fallin 