Views Content Panes are highly flexible replacements for ordinary Views blocks for all of you using Panels. The module itself is actually included in CTools/Chaos Tools suite, but is only (really) useful in combination with Panels and Views.
What's the point with content panes instead of blocks?
- You don't have to meddle with PHP tricks to get (say) the top taxonomy term from the active node as argument into the view. Panels handles the arguments, and Views can receive the correct data to start with.
- You can reuse content panes much more than blocks, since you can change a number of settings for each use of the pane. That includes arguments, but also stuff like number of rows, view title, and even which fields should (not) be displayed. New for this release is the possibility to have exposed filters inside the pane settings, displaying it to panels composers rather than visitors.
The video contains a quick example of how to use content panes.
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