The Layout View tab provides extra functionality to help with configuring the display of groups within the structure. This is because the layout view attempts to provide a representation of how the page will look, which is very dependant on the Display Methods of each group.
Each group in the structure is drawn with a header strip which contains a Details button in the top left corner. Clicking this button will show some new options that allow changing of the Display Method for the selected group. This value can easily be updated by changing the value of the dropdown, which will cause the layout view to be immediately updated to reflect the change. If the group's display method is set to 'Grid', then two extra options are available to control the size of the grid. Changing these values and clicking the Update button will apply the new size to the displayed grid.
The Layout View also provides control over how components are ordered within the grid. Any currently empty cells within the grid will be shown as an 'Empty Cell' block, and new components can be easily added or moved onto this empty cell.
If new components are added into the middle of a grid, then the following components will be 'shuffled' along (across the row, and wrapping onto the next one) until a free cell is found. If the grid is full, when new a component is added to it, then an new row will be automatically created. Of course the number of rows and columns can easily be changed as mentioned above, and the components moved around if needed.
The layout view can also be used to allow components to be merged across cells within a grid structure. When right clicking on a component within a grid a number of extra options will be provided in the context menu, as shown below.
Depending on the position of the current component in the grid in relation to any empty cells, the different merge options will be available or greyed out. If one of the Merge options is selected, the view will be immediately updated to reflect the change. A single component can be merged multiple times if needed to achieve the required layout.
If you wish to stop the current component from spanning multiple cells, the Split option can be selected to revert the component to just occupying a single cell.