how to use the ‘category name’ as a variable?

Hi all,

I have searched the site, but not found an answer. I am new to programming so please bear with me.

My site is set up like this…

‘home’ – currently set to blog posts, may become static
Archives, etc – static pages
And a LOAD of hierarchical category pages

cat one
cat one – subcat
cat one – subcat – subcat

What I am trying to do is to set up a series of widgets on a sidebar of these category pages. The widgets will be flickr pics, popular posts, and so on.

Now I have hundreds of these categories. The prospect of having to customise each widget using the widget logic plugin is … not something I really want to do.

So I am hoping that I can somehow parse the category name as a variable which I can then use in the widgets. Coded once and dynamically working for the hundreds of categories ??

I appreciate that my goal largely depends on having widgets that play nicely. I *really* hope that Activity Sparks works.

What I am hoping for here is the nod that this can be done, and if so then I’ll try and track down a series of compatible widgets which can be hardcoded into the sidebar.

Many thanks in advance,
John