ok... here is the contents of my main.php. it does contain a reference to tpl_sidebar, but it does not appear to be a function declaration (or if it is, its nothing like i'm used to in c++ or java). i'll try a real quick grep in the directory to find anythin else. again, thanks so much for your help!
edit: oh, and btw, my plugins.local file was empty (other than the comment, of course) so it looks like none of the plugins are actually activated at the moment anyway. i'll also post the contents of local.php because nothing looks quite like what you've described (although i may be looking to literally).
<?php
//make sure we've called up the neccessary doku components
if ( isset ( $DOKU_TPL ) == FALSE ) $DOKU_TPL = DOKU_TPL;
if ( isset ( $DOKU_TPLINC ) == FALSE ) $DOKU_TPLINC = DOKU_TPLINC;
?>
<?php
//housekeeping
if ( !empty ( $INFO[ 'userinfo' ] ) )
{
$user = true;
}
require_once( dirname( __FILE__ ).'/tpl_functions.php' );
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="<?php echo $conf['lang']; ?>" lang="<?php echo $conf['lang']; ?>">
<!-- HTML header info -->
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
<?php tpl_metaheaders(); ?>
<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.ico"/>
<title><?php echo strip_tags($conf['title'])?> » <?php tpl_pagetitle()?></title>
</head>
<!-- body info -->
<body>
<!-- Overall DokuWiki Div -->
<div id="dokuwiki">
<!-- Page Header -->
<div class="header">
<?php
tpl_link(wl(),'<img src="'.$DOKU_TPL.'images/logo.png" id="logo" alt="'.hsc($conf['title']).'"/>','name="dokuwiki__top" id="dokuwiki__top" accesskey="h" title="Mythmaker Games Studio"')
?>
<!-- Menu -->
<div class="menu">
<?php print tpl_mypage("menu1"); ?>
</div>
<!-- /Menu -->
</div>
<!-- /Header -->
<!-- Body -->
<div id="body">
<?php html_msgarea()?>
<?php flush(); ?>
<!-- Sidebar -->
<div class="sidebar">
<!-- tpl_sidebar -->
<?php tpl_sidebar('left') ?>
<!-- /tpl_sidebar -->
<!-- search and actions -->
<div class="search">
<?php tpl_searchform()?>
</div>
<div class="search actions">
<!-- if there is a user logged in then display tools -->
<?php if ($user) { ?>
<span class="btn"><a href="?do=edit&revs="><img src="<?php echo $DOKU_TPL; ?>images/ico/edit.png" title="<?php echo $lang['btn_edit']; ?>" /></a></span>
<span class="btn"><a href="?do=profile"><img src="<?php echo $DOKU_TPL; ?>images/ico/user.png" title="<?php echo $lang['btn_profile']; ?>" /></a></span>
<span class="btn"><a href="?do=admin"><img src="<?php echo $DOKU_TPL; ?>images/ico/admin.png" title="<?php echo $lang['btn_admin']; ?>" /></a></span>
<span class="btn"><a href="?do=logout"><img src="<?php echo $DOKU_TPL; ?>images/ico/logout.png" title="<?php echo $lang['btn_logout']; ?>" /></a></span>
<?php } ?>
<!-- if not, only display the login button -->
<?php if (!$user) { ?>
<span class="btn"><a href="?do=login"><img src="<?php echo $DOKU_TPL; ?>images/ico/login.png" title="<?php echo $lang['btn_login']; ?>" /></a></span>
<?php } ?>
</div>
<!-- /search and actions -->
</div>
<!-- /Sidebar -->
<!-- Content -->
<div id="Content">
<?php tpl_content(); ?>
</div>
<!-- /Content -->
<?php flush(); ?>
</div>
<!-- /Body -->
<!-- Footer -->
<div id="footer">
<!-- Breadcrumbs -->
<div class="breadcrumbs"><?php tpl_youarehere(); ?></div>
<?php tpl_indexerwebbug(); ?>
<!-- /Breadcrumbs -->
</div>
<!-- Footer -->
</div>
<!-- DokuWiki -->
</body>
</html>
and the local.php i promised
<?php
/*
* Dokuwiki's Main Configuration File - Local Settings
* Auto-generated by config plugin
* Run for user: ------------- <-edited :D
* Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:08:44 -0400
*/
$conf['title'] = 'Myth-Maker Games';
$conf['start'] = 'Home';
$conf['template'] = 'mythmaker';
$conf['license'] = 'gnufdl';
$conf['youarehere'] = 1;
$conf['maxseclevel'] = '1';
$conf['deaccent'] = '2';
$conf['useheading'] = '1';
$conf['useacl'] = 1;
$conf['superuser'] = '@admin';
$conf['manager'] = '@staff';
$conf['disableactions'] = 'revisions';
$conf['sneaky_index'] = 1;
$conf['target']['extern'] = 'new';
$conf['userewrite'] = '2';
$conf['useslash'] = 1;
$conf['rss_type'] = 'rss2';
$conf['tpl']['monobook']['mb_use_sitenotice'] = '0';
$conf['tpl']['monobook']['mb_use_copyright'] = '0';
$conf['tpl']['monobook']['mb_copyright_location'] = 'copyright';
$conf['tpl']['monobook']['mb_hbc_loc'] = 'bottom';
// end auto-generated content