steering wheel radio controls

has anyone come across a way to put an aftermarket stereo in and keep the functionally of the steering wheel controls for it??

Yes, yes and yes. There is a product made by Pacific audio accessories called the SWI-X.
http://www.pac-audio.com/products/swi.htm

This thing hooks up to the steering wheel, and your climate zone and interfaces to your stereo through the IR port. So you can program the buttons on your steering wheel to control the stereo. Your stereo of course must support a remote and you acutally need the remote to do the programming. It also allows the temperature buttons to work, but if your're slick, like me, you can set the climate buttons up as well to control the stereo which I find much more useful that controlling the clilmate system. I can tell you how to do this if your really interested. The cheapest place, I think, to buy the thing is on buy.com.

I am ghutchin!!!!! This is the reason I havent changed my crappy stock stereo w/ the short in it. Will it work with an alpine w/ tv screen???