Programmatically create a block region in Drupal 7

Question

I am stuck with programmatically creating of regions in Drupal 7. I know how to create regions in .info file, but my problem is that I want regions for every node I create, to show a specific block to each and every node differently.

I am interested in Drupal 7 only. If it is possible by creating a module, that is a solution that interests me, too.

Answer 1

1. Edit your theme .info file to add the following line:

   regions[youregionname] = Your Region name
   

2. Edit your template file (e.g. "page.tpl.php"), and add the following lines:

   <?php if(!empty($page['youregionname'])) : ?> <!--check if region enabled-->
     <div class='my-new-region-class' >   <!--add class to my region-->
       <?php print render($page['youregionname']); ?> <!--print the region-->
     </div>
   <?php endif; ?>
   

After editing the files, don't forget to clear the cache.

Answer 2

You still need to create your regions in your theme's .info file, as far as I know there's no way around that short of manually adding these new regions to your database. After that get the Node Blocks module which will help you decide which blocks are shown for which nodes, and what regions they are placed in.

Answer 3

As maged adel said, you need to create regions in the .info file and then use these variables in the page.tpl.php file and create blocks from the admin section and then place it on the regions and make it different for different nodes.