Views No Results: Show Block Instead?

Question

I have a view that is set up to report breaking news from a "breaking news" text field. But this field is often empty, and in the no results behaviour, we would like to show one of our special offer blocks instead.

I can see an option for "Entity:Rendered Entity" in no results behaviour, but this is only nodes or users, I cant see a way to display a pre existing block?

Answer 1

There is a module that exposes blocks to the view header/footer and no results. It's called the Views Block Area.

This module exposes all available blocks as a views area. This way you can add any block inside a footer or header from your view.

Blocks that are generated by views, can't be selected. These blocks can be inserted by views areas.

This is also only for Drupal 7

Answer 2

This answer is for Drupal 7...

The quick and dirty way would be to use a Global: Text area. With the PHP text filter enabled, you can input the PHP code necessary to render your block.

$block = block_load( $module, $delta);  // if you defined the block via UI, then go to the configuration page for the block.  The configure URL follows the structure: block/manage/MODULE/DELTA/configure
$output = drupal_render(_block_get_renderable_array(_block_render_blocks(array($block))));
print $output;

See block_load() and _block_get_renderable_array(). The PHP Filter is explained here: https://www.drupal.org/node/1046700

Here's a really long conversation of people struggling to just try to render a block by hand: https://www.drupal.org/node/1034524

Optimally I'd be able to point you to a module, but I can't find one.