One loop for sticky, one for all the rest - how, without specifying category?

Question

I have styled an archive page to display one sticky post at the top with special design, and then to display all the rest of the posts in that category (except the sticky post) listed in standard title/excerpt format. I have specified the target category for both loops:

Sticky only:

<?php $args = array(
'cat' => 3,
'posts_per_page' => 1,
'post__in'  => get_option( 'sticky_posts' ),
'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1              
    );

query_posts( $args );?>

All the rest:

<?php 
$paged = get_query_var( 'paged' ) ? get_query_var( 'paged' ) : 1;
$sticky = get_option( 'sticky_posts' );                     
$args = array(
    'cat' => 3,
    'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1,
    'post__not_in' => $sticky,
    'paged' => $paged,
    'orderby' => 'menu_order',  
    'order' => 'ASC' 
); 
query_posts( $args ); ?>

I have made custom category.php templates for each category with the 'cat' ID added manually in each loop.

My question: Is it possible to do this without manually setting the cat ID? I have tried but end up with all posts rather than just the category variable. thx - Steve

Answer 1

you can get the category ID of a category archive with:

get_query_var('cat')