Thought I had it fixed with the well written guide at vbteam but it still wasn't working.
So in a html or txt template, if you have php code in the include (worked in vb3 no issue), and call the variables of the function in the template code itself... it doesn't work. According to VB4 info you have to register these variables first as a template or something.
Anybody have any really helpful information on this? I just have a few pages with custom php code in it for a navigation bar/graphic setup that needs to work on the vb4 templates now.