Setting Tris registers isn't the problem. It's making sure that the inputs are "digital" and the outputs are setup right.

18F's use the ADCON0, ADCON1 to select pins as digital but it doesn't seem to be working for me.

I am more concerned with getting the 16F883 working properly because atleast that series I am decent with.

As you can see, I like binary too. Way easier to understand atleast for me.