Group homepage doesn't display all blocks anymore

Seems to have been introduced by https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/4251/ (Load block contents by AJAX) - commit 1a81f7b in the main repo

OK, this is basically because of the hide_title_on_empty_content method called in blocktype/lib.php:877 - if that method is implemented in a blocktype then render_viewing() will return nothing (not render a template at all). In master, only the Group pages and members blocktypes implement this (for some reason)

(Relevant line in blocktype/lib.php is actually 920 in latest master - apologies)

Patch for "master" branch: https://reviews.mahara.org/4366

Right, so it turns out the problem only affects blocks that use the "hide_title_on_empty_content()" method, which, in core, is only the Group Pages & Group Members blocks.

I've submitted a patch to solve the problem by not ajaxifying blocks that are using hide_title_on_empty_content(). https://reviews.mahara.org/4366

On the downside, the Group Pages block is potentially a long-running block, because it has to do access control checks. Although I suppose it probably gets a speed boost because it limits the search to only pages that are owned by this one specific group.

If we encounter Groups that have a slow Group Homepage load time because of the Group Pages block, then we'll want to considering revisiting this and figuring out a way to Ajaxify the Group Pages block. Maybe one way to do that... would be to make "hide_title_on_empty_content()" check whether the user is a member of the group, and return false if so? Because if you're a group member, you'll always be able to see the Group Homepage, which means the content won't be empty.

Reviewed: https://reviews.mahara.org/4366
Committed: http://gitorious.org/mahara/mahara/commit/d296ca3d7b01089b02461f4082f4975fc7fa0166
Submitter: Robert Lyon (<email address hidden>)
Branch: master

commit d296ca3d7b01089b02461f4082f4975fc7fa0166
Author: Aaron Wells <email address hidden>
Date: Mon Mar 9 10:54:15 2015 +1300

Don't ajaxify blocks that are using "hide title on empty content"

Bug 1429518

Change-Id: I816cd3bb60abb28925beab256804f16ba04100ed