Featured Category Posts on a Page

Hello, I would really appreciate some help customizing a theme that I am using. The theme I am using has the option to activate “Featured Category Posts” on single posts. This displays in the sidebar. I am trying to get this to work on a particular page. This is complicated for me because I don’t know PHP very well.

I have created a new Page template which calls a secondary sidebar php file. I got this part to work. The problem I am facing now is with coding the sidebar PHP file.

Here’s the part of the code from the current sidebar.php file I want in my new sidebar php file.

<!– FEATURED CATEGORIES BOX START –>
<?php $featured_category_active = get_theme_option(‘featured_category_activate’); if(($featured_category_active == ”) || ($featured_category_active == ‘No’)) { ?>
<?php { /* nothing */ } ?>
<?php } else { ?>
<?php if(is_home()) { ?>
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/featured-category.php’); ?>
<?php } ?>
<?php } ?>
<!– FEATURED CATEGORIES BOX END –>

Question #1: In my theme options I have the setting set to display posts from a selected category, which then makes this a site wide configuration. How can I re-write this code to display the featured posts from a specific category.

I’m certain I also need to do something with the Featured-Category.php file as well. Can I post the code for that file here for review??

I only want these changes to effect the new page that I am working on so that’s why I have created a new page template and a new side bar file.

Again, I would really appreciate someone taking the time to help me with this.