I needed to display a different set of blocks in the right-hand column of one page. To do this I hacked the function COM_siteFooter.

This takes a Boolean parameter $rightblock which indicates whether or not to display the blocks.

I changed this to also support a string, so you can call COM_siteFooter($block_data) and it will display $block_data in place of the usual right hand blocks.

Here's the changes to COM_siteFooter (for v1.3.9 but I doubt if later versions differ much). At about line 1131, change the code after 'if ($rightblock)' as follows:



Ideally the $rightblock string should be formatted into blocks, but if your theme allows it you can put any text in there.

One place I see this being useful is the 'related items' panels on story pages, which at the moment don't always behave themselves.