Content Well Portlets
You can add portlets to the main content area! Not only do content well portlets allow static and dynamically updated content (i.e. from a Collection, News, Events, or even an RSS feed), but they can be positioned alongside each other, above or below the normal content. With some planning, they can greatly enhance your site layout.
Portlet Regions
There are three general areas for content well portlets: 1) above the content, 2) below the content, and 3) in the "footer".
Above the Content
(1) You can add portlets above the normal content. Any portlet(s) added here will appear above the page title and description, as well as any fixed right-hand column portlets.
Below the Content
(2) You can add portlets below the normal content. Portlet(s) added here will appear below the page body, to the left of any fixed right-hand column portlets.
In the Footer
(3) You can add portlets to a footer area contained within the white space below everything else, but above the permanent blue site footer.
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Portlet Wells
Not only can portlets appear above content, below content, and in the footer, but within each of these three areas are six Portlet Wells, labeled A through F. Portlet wells serve to give you control over the positioning of portlets in relation to each other within the region you're adding them to (above, below, or footer). If you add more than one portlet to a single portlet well, they'll stack vertically. Basically, you can add one or as many portlets as you like to any portlet well, and the portlets will fill the space determined by that portlet well.
Standard Positioning
Portlet Well A
Portlets placed within portlet well A will take up 100% of the total width.
Portlet Well B
Portlets placed within portlet well B are constrained to 50% of the total width, and are floated to the LEFT.
Portlet Well C
Portlets placed within portlet well C are constrained to 50% of the total width, and are floated to the RIGHT.
Portlet Well D
Portlets placed within portlet well D are constrained to 33% (a third) of the total width, and are floated to the LEFT.
Portlet Well E
Portlets placed within portlet well E are constrained to 33% (a third) of the total width, and are floated in the CENTER.
Portlet Well F
Portlets placed within portlet well F are constrained to 33% (a third) of the total width, and are floated to the RIGHT.
The simplest idea is that you can have a row with one (A), two (B & C), or three (D, E & F) columns across—with as many portlets as you need vertically in each "column", or portlet well.
In the example screenshot at the top of this page, portlet well A was used for the banner image, and footer line. Portlet wells B & C were used for the featured update (a collection portlet) and PubMed News (an RSS portlet), respectively.
Warning: You'll find that if you don't use an entire horizontal row as described above, blank space will usually take the space of unused, adjacent portlet wells. Page content (body content, etc) will not wrap into those areas.
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Bonus Positioning
There may be cases when you'd like a row of portlets to be followed by another row that has less portlet wells, instead of more, as the standard positioning scheme dictates. This is now possible through the use of specific portlet well combinations that trigger one of three alternative schemes.
2 Above, 1 Below
Achieve the "2 Above, 1 Below" layout by using only portlet wells B, C, & D together.
3 Above, 1 Below
Achieve the "3 Above, 1 Below" layout by using only portlet wells B, C, D & E together.
3 Above, 2 Below
Achieve the "3 Above, 1 Below" layout by using only portlet wells A, B, C, E & F together (no D).
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