Tip: You don't need a sidebar template

[Nick]

How can you have a sidebar without a sidebar template? Easy!

In the default theme, you've got this:

index.php

                            <!-- SIDEBAR -->
                            <?php
                                // plugin hook
                                $result = $h->pluginHook('theme_index_sidebar');
                                if (!$result) {
                                    $h->displayTemplate('sidebar');
                                }                                
                            ?>

sidebar.php

<div id="sidebar">

    <?php $h->pluginHook('widget_block', '', array(1)); ?>

</div>

So you could just move the sidebar code into your index template and delete the sidebar template altogether!

index.php

                            <!-- SIDEBAR -->
                            <?php
                                // plugin hook
                                $result = $h->pluginHook('theme_index_sidebar');
                                if (!$result) { ?>
                                    <div id="sidebar">
                                        <?php $h->pluginHook('widget_block', '', array(1)); ?>
                                    </div>
                            <?php } ?>

[Jason]

This is similar to how it's done in SMF, too. It's nice that we can do something like this in Hotaru as it will make minimalist themes consist of maybe ... 3 files?