[kh99]

You don't need the <?php in plugin code.

'parse_templates' is a different hook location, but 'global_start' will work so you're OK.

I think you had another typo in the code you posted above (there's an extra space in 'includedphp ', which I now see is a typo in the "Rendering Templates..." article).

Try this:

PHP Code:

ob_start();
  include('/home/bluepr12/public_html/wavingthewheat.com/chatuser.php');
  $includedphp = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

vB_Template::preRegister('navbar',array('includedphp' => $includedphp)); 


BTW, not to confuse things further, but you could also do something like this in the plugin:

PHP Code:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM ajax_chat_online");  
$num_chatting = mysql_num_rows($result);  
vB_Template::preRegister('navbar',array('num_chatting' => $num_chatting)); 


and {vb:raw num_chatting} in the template, and you wouldn't need the external file.