changing templates in single-catablog-items.php

But shortcodes don’t work for single item display do they? Or is there a way to use a shortcode to display just one item?

As far as I understand it for showing a single item on a page its using single-catablog-items.php. Essentially I want a single-catablog-items2.php file and a way for switching between them depending on the category. But I just can’t work it out.

My site is an art site and I’m using catablog to show different galleries. But I don’t want to show all the paintings on one page as you’d get if you used a shortcode, I want to see one item at a time.

So in my sidebar I have a shortcode that loads all the items from one category as thumbnail images to create a menu. When you click one it loads just that one catablog item in the main page using the single-catablog-items.php file. It works really well. Here is an example http://www.deniselaurent.co.uk/the-paintings/milly-many-coats/

But I’d like to use a different layout for some items. I think single-catablog-items.php uses the single layout template? So I thought I could find a way to tell it to switch templates and use a different one for a different category. But I can’t work out where or how you do that. Maybe it’s in the programming somewhere (in which case that’s too complicated to touch) or maybe I’m missing something really obvious. I’m not sure which! 🙂

Thank you for the link but that page is all about using gallery shortcodes, my question is about using and working with single-catablog-items.php.

thank you for your time anyway.