single_sidebox and wordpress widgets

hello, i thought this was going to be much simpler than it was – wordpress has totally impressed me with its function and interfaces – so much maybe i became over-confident. i have googled and searched for three days on this, and am afraid that my total lack of wordpress knowledge is not helping, so i was hoping that someone out there would know the solution.

scenario linux php5.2, a zen-cart installation 1.39h on the main root, wordpress 3.05 in a subfolder. using a customized variation of the twenty-ten theme.

using zen-cart modules, it is rumored that you can integrate wordpress either by embedding the wordpress in zen-cart – which i do not want to do, or by basically embedding sidebars and boxes from the two into the other, which is what i do want.

i was successful at the wordpress into zen-cart boxes, using the woz boxes only, and it works beautifully actually.

it is the second module and the wordpress side that is making me a bit crazy…and in reality should be the simplest given the tools that wordpress has for stuff.

sidebox anywhere, single_sidebox.php

the php code to embed into wordpress is

$zcSBmodule = 'name.php';
$zcSBlayout = 'left';
     require ("path/to/zencart/single_sidebox.php");

i have experimented with adding it to sidebar.php but was unsuccessful

`<div>
<?php $zcSBmodule = ‘name.php’;
$zcSBlayout = ‘left’;
require (“path/to/zencart/single_sidebox.php”);
</div>`

there are multiple sidebar areas in that theme, and i tried adding it as a sep sidebar area, substituting for one of them, and in a completely diff sidebar2 file

soooo
now i am trying to add it as a widget?

using my custom widgets plugin, so far with no luck, if it doesn’t break the layout, it cuts off the widget below. i am going to install phpexec now to see if it works – if not i think maybe i will have to put it in a custom widget as the function?

or write one that will access the information from zen-cart directly which means a big delay… i am good when i have a blueprint to follow but am not a php expert by any means

so if you were me, what would you try next? is there something about the code that should be changed to call the single_sidebox.php file into a widget? – or to place it in its own sidebar?