This should help make it easier to test and deploy new templates and also answer questions (
Setting Default Template) around setting templates.
In order to toggle between multiple templates:
1. Replace references to "yget" in sidebar_comments.php, sidebar_stories.php and sidebar_stories_u.php to enable the currently selected template:
Add reference to $selectedtemplate variable to this line as shown: global $the_template, $main_smarty, $db, $selectedtemplate;
and replace if($the_template == "yget") with if ($the_template == $selectedtemplate)
2. Add the following line to libs/smartyvariables.php
$selectedtemplate = $db->get_var('SELECT var_value from ' . table_config . ' where var_name="$thetemp";');
3. Use the latest files for sidebar_stats and random_story modules
Once you have the new template in the templates directory, add the template entry to the templates.tpl file and set the template name in admin>config>templates. The new template should show up.