configuring categories and sub-categories

[livemotion]

I'm working with the theme file and I've ran into a couple of problems.

I'm unable to edit the part of the theme file that controls the look of the categories without effecting the look of sub-categories. Here's my current code for categories within the theme.php file:

Code Select Expand

// HTML template for the category list
$template_cat_list = <<<EOT

<!-- BEGIN header -->
       <tr>
               <td class="tableh1" width="80%">&nbsp;<b>{CATEGORY}</b></td>
               <td class="tableh1" width="10%" align="center"><b>{ALBUMS}</b></td>
               <td class="tableh1" width="10%" align="center"><b>{PICTURES}</b></td>
       </tr>
<!-- END header -->
<!-- BEGIN catrow_noalb -->
       <tr>
               <td class="tableh2"><table border="0"><tr><td>{CAT_THUMB}</td><td><span class="catlink"><b>{CAT_TITLE}</b></span>{CAT_DESC}</td></tr></table></td>
       </tr>
<!-- END catrow_noalb -->
<!-- BEGIN catrow -->
<tr>
<td class="tableb"><table border="0">
<tr>
<td>{CAT_THUMB}</td><td><span class="catlink"><b>{CAT_TITLE}</b></span>{CAT_DESC}</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF" align="center">{ALB_COUNT}</td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF" align="center">{PIC_COUNT}</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tableb" colspan="3">{CAT_ALBUMS}</td>
</tr>
<!-- END catrow -->
<!-- BEGIN footer -->
       <tr>
               <td colspan="3" class="tableh1" align="left"><span class="statlink">{STATISTICS}</span></td>
       </tr>
<!-- END footer -->
<!-- BEGIN spacer -->
       <img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="17" alt="" /><br />
<!-- END spacer -->

EOT;

I need to break this code apart so that one part controls categories and the other part to control sub categories.

If you takea look at: http://www.nynightguide.com/pictures
you'll notice the main categories set-up

However, when you click on any of the categories you'll be taken to its corresponding sub-category and notice that the set-up is realigned with all of the content positioned in the middle of the page.

To avoid this problem, I am looking for a way to be able to control both the look of categories and sub categories individualy. Is there any way to do this?