You can have any design you want.
The problem is placing content into those columns. You could do it manually.
Most people, however, want to control that in the adim panel or page.
if (pdata == 1) { var psidetext = '".$locale['420']."'; }
if (pdata == 2) { var psidetext = '".$locale['421']."'; }
if (pdata == 3) { var psidetext = '".$locale['425']."'; }
if (pdata == 4) { var psidetext = '".$locale['422']."'; }
Above is from admistration/panels.php. 1, 2, 3, 4 are the fours positions and locale 420, 421, 425, 420 are the names of the columns.
After looking this up I think I'll also look into how to make more columns. I already have an idea. ???
Merged on Aug 18 2011 at 09:22:40:
Well I edited the files for panels and added panel-side 5 and 6.
Image of admin and data baseadministration/panels.php
administration/panel_editor.php
locale/English/admin/panels.php
themes/templates/panels.css
themes/templates/panel.php
So my database has 6 column positions with new names but is totally useless without a theme built for it.
I'll build one to test this when and if I get time. Will be fun. The css will be murder.
Added a fifth file.