Still getting there 
Well I decided to try the MyIntSmarty and in a way I got the IntSmarty working (had to really pay attention to paths though - originally couldn’t find Smarty and then later IntSmarty, language folder and a couple of other things). So now I have the {l} around my text to be translated and the MyIntSmarty class made with my specifics. Only 1 problem - I’m not creating the language tables.
Created the file and changed the perms to 777 so the webserver can write to it and set the path in the $lang_path… easy right? Call up the page and it displays. Look in the language directory for the en-us.php or en.php file and nothing. Hmmm - check the compiled templates and there is a directory named ‘en’ follow it down to a compiled page. Hmmm. Maybe I need to clean out the compiled templates and the cache so the IntSmarty can make the files… Do that. Call the page again - same thing. Check the error logs - maybe something popped up there…. Nothing. Maybe the access logs (hey I was desperate)…. POST 200 code. Dang nothing showing there… Maybe I need to create the blank files and put them in place? Do that. Nothing still! Grrr.
Tried to figure it out (tweek, alter, rewrite) and couldn’t… spent most of the day on it. Hate doing this but time to ask a dumb question. Write an email to John Coggeshall (the author of IntSmarty) explaining what I did and sent some of the code (the MyIntSmarty, the php page and the template). Hopefully I’m not asking a totally stupid question or missing a really basic component. Nothing like a novice to screw up something easy 
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So here I sit. Hopefully the email will be noticed some time this month since I’m sure the author gets tons of email. Maybe the IntSmarty in the Subject line will help - maybe it will get it dumped. We’ll see and I’ll let ya know