html portal & new to vbb

hi,
i have been 'building' up a server for a school which is to contain a intranet site.
The server(s) will be running apache and MYSQL and PHP4.
I really want to be able to have a 'news portal' style entry.

Now here is the question...
Is there any way I can code a normal HTML page to query the board and display:[list=1][*]The first posts of each thread (upto 20) in a forum called News[*]A nice little login box or if they aren't logged on then a registar[/list=1]
I'm wanting to also do basic stuff like include links to special forums but the main one was the news forum.
I have tried a add-on for PHP-Nuke called promixa but that doesn't have very good forum support compared to VBB -_- .
I have also tried a few hacks from here which gave a news portal look... these were very good except i am trying to get the homepage away from VBB until they are actually in the forums.

And finally - will Vbulletin work in frames. I am going to try have a frame along the top with links to some vbulletin related stuff and also non-related. Do i just code a html page which includes index.php in the lower frame or can i edit the template to allow myself to add more buttons.

If anyone has time to read and answer this, they are a god and i would be extremely grateful for any hints or code...

Thanks in Advance all!

GOB99025