Most Drupal sites use the block module to create blocks which are reused throughout a site. Have you ever needed to embed one of these custom blocks into a node template or into some other template files? Its surprising, but there isn't a single, simple function that you can call to do this. There is a thread on drupal.org about this, but none of the solutions really seemed right. To do this more elegantly, we made a function which can be used in your theme's template.php file to make block embedding simple.
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/**
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* Returns a fully themed custom made block from the block module
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*/
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function mytheme_render_block($delta) {
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$block = db_fetch_object(db_query('SELECT DISTINCT(b.bid), title, body, format from {boxes} left join {blocks} b on boxes.bid = b.delta where module="block" and boxes.bid= %d',$delta));
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$block->content = check_markup($block->body, $block->format, FALSE);
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$block->module = 'block';
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$block->delta = $block->bid;
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return theme('block', $block);
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}
Then, in your node template file, all you need to do is to call the function with the block's delta. To find the block delta, go to the block administration page at '/admin/build/block' and hover over the block's configure link. In the browser's status bar at the bottom, you'll see a link like 'http://mysite.com/admin/build/block/configure/block/4'. The last digit is the delta. All that remains is to place the following clean code snippet into your template and you'll have the full, properly rendered block.
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print mytheme_render_block(4);
With this your template files will stay clean and simple, instead of being full of code, so your themers can focus on making your site look great.
