In this episode, we focus on setting up the forum layout, which will be the foundation for our forum's look and feel. Instead of sticking with the default dashboard layout, we jump in and create a brand new layout to better match what we want—a sidebar on the left and a main panel on the right. This layout will be shared across different forum pages, like the index and discussion pages (and any new ones we add in the future).
We start by creating a ForumLayout
file, using the base authenticated layout as a wrapper. From there, we build out a grid-based structure, customizing the container widths to give the sidebar about 2/7 of the space and the main panel 5/7. With some quick styling and testing, we make sure everything lines up and adjust paddings and background colors to visualize how things are looking. Once we're happy with the basic structure, we clean up our styles, so it's all neat.
To make our layout flexible, we add support for named slots, letting us drop in sidebar content easily from each page. We show how to use this with a simple example, grabbing some content from the index as a placeholder in the sidebar. Finally, we tweak the spacing and layout a bit more so everything looks right, with a clear distinction between the sidebar and main discussion area. Now, we're set up with a solid base layout, ready to slot in our actual forum content next!