CSS Layout (Modular?)

[tomdelonge]

I don't know if modular is completely the right term. At any rate, I've just started learning php and mysql, and I believe I understand the basics. I want to design my own content management system. Believe me, it will be extremely small. I've worked a little with Joomla, but I want to make something more specific to my needs. I will have a backend and a frontend, and I want to let the backend control the layout. I don't really understand modular design completely yet (except that each piece is self contained and reusable), but I'm just hoping to get some ideas on how to handle layout. I understand basics of CSS, but I have yet to understand how to handle layout that can be changed through the backend. On another post I read, it said to have each module have a anchor or id of some sort that would enable the larger numbers to appear on top. So if I had a login module and a menu module both on the left column, and the login had a value of 4 and the menu had a value of 3, then the login would appear above. I know it's a lot to ask, but perhaps someone could go into detail on how to accomplish this. Let me know if you need anymore details. (Remember, this question is more about the css than it is the module or php, but you can throw some of that in if you want). Thanks for any help you can provide.