Load a panels display in code

Question

To load a Panel display from the database we can use panels_load_display($did)

However, the $did value is an autoincrement value from the database. It is not present in exported Panel page displays (e.g features export).

I thought perhaps we could use ctools_export_object_load to load the exported panels display.

However, I found that it only returns a result if the display is in the panels_display table in the database, and returns empty empty for exported code storage displays.

e.g:

// Attempt to load Panels display
ctools_include('export');
$uuid = '49c15c71-d5d1-d574-b539-0149f912f925';
$display  = ctools_export_load_object('panels_display', 'conditions', array('uuid' => $uuid ));
var_export($display); // empty array if not in DB.

How can we load a Panel display in code when that display is exported in features and using code-based storage?

Answer 1

The relationship between tables and their exported datasets is declared via the export key in a table's schema definition. We can see that key both for page_manager_pages and panels_display.

ctools also allows the definition of a default hook. If non was provided it will fall back to default_{table}.

When loading a ctools exportable via ctools_export_load_object() ctools will first query the table for objects, then invoke the default hook to retrieve any objects stored in code.

When page manager pages are exported, panels_display objects are not declared separately under their own hook, but are wrapped in hook_default_page_manager_pages().
In order to retrieve them by their UUID they would have to be declared within hook_default_panels_display().

Answer 2

After trying various approaches such as:

$page = ctools_export_load_object('page_manager_pages', 'names', array('app'));
var_export($page);
// And also
$handler = ctools_export_load_object('page_manager_handlers', 'names', array('page_app__panel_context_7d7ea5ec-d257-43aa-bfe6-a0c25623111d'));
var_export($handler);

I found I couldn't reliably load the panel display when it was in both code and stored in the db.

Maybe there's another way but in the maze of ctools, panels and page manager, I ended up with a simpler solution.

Minipanels!

Compared to page displays, it's much easier to load and render minipanels programmatically:

$minipanel_name = 'minipanel_machine_name';
// This loads the minipanel, both from DB or from code export.
$minipanel = panels_mini_load($minipanel_name);
// Render the minipanel display
if (empty($minipanel) || empty($minipanel->display)) {
  watchdog('module', 'Unable to load minipanel: !name', array('!name' => $minipanel_name));
}else if (!empty($minipanel->display)) {
  $display = $minipanel->display;
  // Pass data as dynamic args to panel display
  // This is optional, but used for this case.
  $display->args = array('data' => $data);
  $output = panels_render_display($display);
}