How to make a region available to a non-page tpl file?

Question

I'm working with a custom theme (which I did not develop.) We're wanting to add a block to a specific node type, which has a template called node-session.tpl.php. This template prints out all kinds of internal html and php, but is framed by the page.tpl.php file. The node-session.tpl.php contains the code that's printed by the $content variable in page.tpl.php.

I have a new block (created by the AddThis module) that needs to be positioned on the page such that it's nested inside a div created in the node-session.tpl.php. Unfortunately placing the region inside that file doesn't work, and in fact just testing for the variable $add_this itself returns false. According to all the documentation I can find, region variables are available to page template files only. Is there a way I can make the variable available to the node-session.tpl.php file so that I can position the block correctly?

Answer 1

Sure, you can use a node_preprocess() hook to create the variable much like this:

function mytheme_preprocess_node(&$variables) {

   // whatever else you are doing goes here


   $block = module_invoke('AddThis', 'block', 'view', 0);
   $variables['mynewblock']=$block['content'];

}

which would call the AddThis module to invoke it's block hook and return block with delta 0.

Lots more detail can be found here: http://www.pixelclever.com/how-insert-a-block-a-tpl-or-content-programmatically-with-drupal