It's a pretty simple widget. We have something similar for our home page. I've adapted it here to work in the sidebar (I think):
<?php
class featured_questions {
function allow_template($template)
{
return true;
}
function allow_region($region)
{
return ($region=='side');
}
function output_widget($region, $place, $themeobject, $template, $request, $qa_content)
{
global $qa_db;
$query = "select p.postid, p.title, p.userid, p.acount, u.points from qa_posts as p, qa_userpoints as u where p.type = 'Q' and p.userid = u.userid order by p.hotness desc limit 3";
$result = mysql_query($query,$qa_db);
echo '<div class="featured">';
echo '<h2>Featured Questions</h2>';
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){
$url = qa_path_html(qa_q_request($row['postid'], $row['title']));
echo '<h4><a href="' . $url . '">' . $row['title'] . '</a></h4>';
echo '<p>Question posted by ' . $row['userid'] . ' <span class="points">(' . $row['points'] . ' points)</span> Answers: ' . $row['acount'] . '</p>';
}
echo '</div>';
}
};
