ok, an update to this question:

what about using includes in a block? why is it they will work from everywhere else except in the block itself? is there a trick to it (or a path rule?).

for now what I have done is used the TinyContent module to wrap in an html file that in turn includes the php (this is the only content module that works for this!) and then I have used the spotlight mod to enable a recent news block. With this method, is there a way to hack it to get the other news blocks (such as new news etc) to show up here? This was available in past versions of XOOPS and suddenly was taken away.

I have a php fetch script that I am attempting to insert into a custom block. If I leave it set to 'php script', nothing happens and the script does not get executed (or if it does, nothing shows up in the block anyways). If I set it to HTML, the preview in the block admin works great, but when I actually submit it and then go look at the news page which is where it should show up, the entire page is completely messed up and the block content is not staying in the block or parsing correctly. whats going on??
Here is a screencap of what it looks like broken:
screencap1
and what it SHOULD look like (as the preview correctly works):
screencap 2
this is essentially what would happen if the php open and close tags were being ignored and the content just spit out like text, but why is it working in preview and not in the block?? It also works if I plop the script onto the site anywhere as a single php file and then go to the url in the browser.

I am not able to get CJay Content or Freecontent to include it correctly as a php file either.

Any help is appreciated! This is a critical piece to my site!

what i have done is created a main html file for these areas in the root of content, and created connections to those. from there, the content in the sub folders can be linked from the file itself. If you are looking for a way to have a multiple page 'minisite', for instance like a 'lyrics', 'bios', 'releases', type thing, you can create a menu at the bottom or top of the subpages, or use the [pagebreak] to create a 1 2 3 4 > type situation. I probably didn't word it very well but I hope that makes sense.

still looking for an answer....

in the module properties in the admin panel, there is a tiny checkbox for allow user upload. make sure its checked, and then make sure the maximum file size is set appropriately or else you get a very vague error. You may also want to edit the template to include a message that users must be patient and not touch anything after they hit the upload button, because they will not get any kind of message or indication that the site is working on it

I need to know the answer to this as well