Make block panes work without block module installed

Here's a simple patch that makes block panes work without block module installed. It actually works pretty well. The only thing that modules implementing hook_block_view() will notice, is that they won't get a full $info object passed around. But, the object still contains the most vital information, module, and delta. The $info object won't contain theme, region and weight, but those properties are rarely used inside hook_block_view().

The patch also fixes the issue mentioned in the OP.

So, all in all, I'd say this is a pretty good trade off for making it possible to use blocks without block module installed.

The patch isn't applying for me in current dev version:

Checking patch plugins/content_types/block/block.inc...
error: while searching for:
$block->title = NULL;
}

if (user_access('administer blocks')) {
$block->admin_links = array(
array(
'title' => t('Configure block'),

error: patch failed: plugins/content_types/block/block.inc:122

Thanks would be really great to have this working.

The patch applied just fine fo rme; I committed and pushed it. This is awesome. Thanks!

Looks like the changes introduced by the committed patch in this issue, was reverted in another. Looking through the Git logs things got reverted here: #1275886: Error - Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in menu_block_view_alter()

Quoting tim.plunkett in comment #63 in that issue:

Well, #1252398: Make block panes work without block module installed: changed the exact same stuff, and was mostly a workaround for the code that this issue removes.

However, I don't agree with Tim ;) The changes introduced by that issue makes it impossible to run a Panels site using block content types without Block module since it's querying the {block} table. The whole point of this patch was to be able to do that, because most blocks do work by passing a stub $info into hook_block_view().

So here's a new patch that fixes the problem again :)

The structure is odd where we first build an $info, then if block module exists we throw it away. Can we reorganize its so we only construct the partial $info block if necessary?

As I think on it, I think I'd rather have the empty $info construct originate in _ctools_get_block_info() because the calling function doesn't really care about that detail anyway.

Looking at the current code, this patch is no longer necessary.