Many of us can spot a Drupal theme a mile away -- the telltale columns of the same blocks down the sides. One of the key elements of a site that takes it to the next level is using different styles for different blocks. Perhaps you have a large promo callout block at the top, or one with product thumbnails, or a list view, or a form.

Traditionally, this is done by targeting specific blocks in your CSS -- styling block-block-3 one way, and block-faq-2 another. But then you, or your client, wants to add another block styled the same way, or change things around a bit. This requires editing the theme's CSS and you can end up with a long list of repeated block styles.

What if there was a way to define sets of styles in the theme, which could then be selected by administrators through Drupal's UI? What if styles could also be easily created for Panels, Views, and more? If adding another one of those promo blocks with the large text didn't require any editing of your theme?

The future of Drupal theming

The future is here, with the Skinr module.

We'll show you a theme (or maybe a couple!) that uses this module, and how it can dramatically decrease theming code, and cut down on those calls from clients.

It also plugs in seamlessly to Panels, and we'll show you how that works, along with defining your own layouts and advanced styles for Panels 3.