Hi, I see two ways to do it, I'll give you the cleanest:
create a new theme and put a conditional statement around the code of panel.php (some code is stolen from appg/init_vanilla.php)
// this code is not tested
$DisplayPanel = false;
if ( $Context->SelfUrl == "comments.php" )
{
if ($Context->Session->UserID > 0) {
$RequiredPermissions = array('PERMISSION_CHECK_FOR_UPDATES',
'PERMISSION_APPROVE_APPLICANTS',
'PERMISSION_MANAGE_REGISTRATION',
'PERMISSION_ADD_ROLES',
'PERMISSION_EDIT_ROLES',
'PERMISSION_REMOVE_ROLES',
'PERMISSION_ADD_CATEGORIES',
'PERMISSION_EDIT_CATEGORIES',
'PERMISSION_REMOVE_CATEGORIES',
'PERMISSION_SORT_CATEGORIES',
'PERMISSION_CHANGE_APPLICATION_SETTINGS',
'PERMISSION_MANAGE_EXTENSIONS',
'PERMISSION_MANAGE_LANGUAGE',
'PERMISSION_MANAGE_STYLES',
'PERMISSION_MANAGE_THEMES');

$RequiredPermissionsCount = count($RequiredPermissions);
$i = 0;
for ($i = 0; $i < $RequiredPermissionsCount; $i++) {
if ($Context->Session->User->Permission($RequiredPermissions[$i])) {
$DisplayPanel = true;
break;
}
}
}
}
if ( ! $Context->SelfUrl == "comments.php" OR $DisplayPanel )
{
// old code in panel.php
}
This should always display the panel on other pages than somments.php, and if we're in comments.php, display the panel only if we are authenticated and have a permission among those listed.

What's the error?

Paste us the whole thing.

I think "$Context" needs to be changed to "$this->Context" (the theme patch is being called from within the Panel object).

Also, wouldn't this be easier?

// this code is not tested

if ( ! $this->Context->SelfUrl == "comments.php" OR $this->Context->Session->User->RoleID > {whatever} )
{
// old code in panel.php
}

Must work now, Tim is right. Now for the precise condition, I first started to think like the last bit of code, but I'm not good at permissions and role ids and so on. I just copy-pasted the code in appg/init_vanilla.php to be sure to have something like an 'admin condition'. It depends on what Monstr wants.