Is it still a partial port or does it take a different approach? At the moment of this question, I am using:


Drupal 8.1.3
Panels 8.x-3.0-beta4
Page Manager 8.x-1.0-alpha23
Layout plugin 8.x-1.0-alpha22


I am having difficulties replicating what was easy with Drupal 7, and I am not sure if the reason is simply that the ports of Panels and Page Manager are still incomplete, or that the approach has changed and I am not getting it.

In Drupal 7, you could create panels, and insert content into panes:


You could really add anything into a pane.

In Drupal 8, it looks like I can only add blocks:


What I want to achieve is being able to override a basic page (I'm overriding /node/{node}), and for example have a simple 1-column layout to display:



          &lt;node title&gt;




           &lt;block 1&gt;




          &lt;node body&gt;




           &lt;block 2&gt;




It could be more complex than that of course. 

So, back to my question: is it just a matter of waiting for a complete port of Panels, or am I missing something?
It looks like you've forgotten to install one of the modules that implement panels.
From: drupal.org/project/panels

Panels in Drupal 8
We’re actively working on Panels for Drupal 8 which works with the new layout_plugin module and mainly is an interface to configure and store these layouts.
Panels is an API in Drupal 8
In order to use panels, you must use an implementing module. Currently, Page Manager and Panelizer implement panels.
If you’re interested in following the Drupal 8 port in detail, follow #2169319: [meta] Drupal 8 port of Panels in the issue queue OR join us on IRC every Tuesday at 12 noon CDT (UCT-0500) in the #drupal-scotch channel for our weekly meetings.