I need to be able to fill the content of an island dependent upon the forum being displayed. Alternatively, I need to be able to put some code outside of the islands that does this. (We sell advertising separately for some forums.) Any ideas anyone?

perhaps have the code inside the content island include a file with the forum number in the name eg:

included_file_1.php for forum #1

It would be good to have a solution - we too could do with such an option.

I would also be able to use something to do the same thing.
I'm running out of Content Island and have to vary it depending on the forum. The "Smarty" code for Usenet, forums numbers etc. isn't available in the island.
Rick said he might get to doing it in a future release.
I'm waiting.
If forum number were available you could do an array using it to pick up the content.

AFAIK you can parse code in smarty templates; just look at the post listing, flat view, sidebar items, online listing, etc...