Allen I got the sidebar finished as we discussed.
It's editable from the online template editer.
It's width and what side it's on (left/right/off) is set in theme.inc.php.
Users can opt to turn it off from their display prefs.
Oh... and it should work with php code so other things can be done in the template such as the users online hack display
Now someone will probably want me to document it or something... lol
