What are alternatives to block?

Question

I use \begin{block} ... \end{block} to describe formalization of some notions, and I want to write some examples under it. I still would like to stick to the structure of a block (one part for title and the other part for the content), but it is desirable to use another color to distinguish the example from the notion.

Could anyone tell me what I could use to embed the example?

Answer 1

How about using the alertblock or the exampleblock environment?

\documentclass{beamer}

\usecolortheme{whale}
\usecolortheme{orchid}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{A frame}

\begin{block}{A block environment}
Some text.
\end{block}

\begin{alertblock}{An alertblock environment}
Some text.
\end{alertblock}

\begin{exampleblock}{An exampleblock environment}
Some text.
\end{exampleblock}

\end{frame}

\end{document}

Answer 2

It's probably a bit late to join the party. However...

...the tcolorbox package provides some beautiful and flexible block environments (PGF-based) that specifically support "split boxes" with an upper and a lower half. As of version 1.1 (2012-03-01), there is also a complete English documentation available (previous versions where German only).

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{A frame}

\begin{tcolorbox}[colback=blue!5,colframe=blue!75!black,title=My title]
  My cool formalization
  \tcblower
  $\displaystyle\sum\limits_{i=1}^n i = \frac{n(n+1)}{2}$
\end{tcolorbox}

\end{frame}

\end{document}