How to padding the content of a block in beamer presentation

Question

I search the internet and get a nice redefinition of the block environment of beamer. It has the ability to set the width of the block, instead of always spanning the whole page.

\newenvironment<>{varblock}[2][0.95\textwidth]{
  \begin{center}
    \begin{minipage}{#1}
      \setlength{\textwidth}{#1}
        \begin{actionenv}#3
          \def\insertblocktitle{#2}
          \par
          \usebeamertemplate{block begin}}
    {\par
          \usebeamertemplate{block end}
        \end{actionenv}
    \end{minipage}
  \end{center}
}

Now I want to add padding to the text inside the block. Please notice only text not block title. I want to do this because I am using a plain theme, which does not have the color background to get them easily distinguishable.

Please help me, thanks.

Answer 1

I'm not quite sure what the above definition is doing that the already defined columns environment doesn't...

\documentclass{beamer}
\usecolortheme{orchid}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \begin{columns}[t]
    \begin{column}{0.49\textwidth}
      \begin{block}{This is a headline}
        This is a block
      \end{block}
    \end{column}
    \begin{column}{0.49\textwidth}
      \begin{block}{}
      This is another block
    \end{block}
    \end{column}
  \end{columns}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

I've added a colour theme just to illustrate the extent of the blocks. So the question is: "How can I make the width of the body text thinner than that of the headline?" You can do that with a quote environment inside the block:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usecolortheme{orchid}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \begin{columns}[t]
    \begin{column}{0.49\textwidth}
      \begin{block}{This is a headline}
        \begin{quote}
          Here is some text that is shrunk a little bit isn't it?
        \end{quote}
      \end{block}
    \end{column}
    \begin{column}{0.49\textwidth}
      \begin{block}{}
      This is another block
    \end{block}
    \end{column}
  \end{columns}
\end{frame}
\end{document}