[Tamtams]

OK - I FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT!

It was a stupid mistake of course - on my end - basically, I didn't know you actually had to creat a custom template through the style manager - I thought you could create custom templates pragmatically - i.e. just through PHP code.

For people who come find this thread later on, here's what needs to be done to get this working:

1) Create a new plugin under hook "threadbit_display" with the following code:

PHP Code:

$test_value = "It Works!";
$templater = vB_Template::create('custom_template'); 
$templater->register('output', $test_value); 
$custom_template= $templater->render();
vB_Template::preRegister('threadbit', array('custom_template' => $custom_template)); 


2) Now in the Style Manager, create a custom template called "custom_template", and place the following code in it:

{vb:raw output}

3) Now in the Style Manager, edit the template called "Threadbit" and add the following line:

{vb:raw custom_template}

Thanks everyone for your help