New Products module show only current category (and subs)

[trullala]

Hi,

i am developing my first prestashop project (we decided to throw all our oscommerce account over board and migrate to prestashop).
Sooo, i am trying to overcome the following problems:

1.) In the "new products" module, i want to show only products from the current category and its subcategories; i already tried to mess with the query code inside the module, but without success
2.) Same thing for the "special offers" module
3.) I am looking for a solution for the select-parent-category-items problem, in a few words: If i select a subcategory of a menu, it does not have the "selected" class anymore... There is a jquery solution around the forum, but i wanted to search for a clean php-solution, anyone has an idea? =)

Any help apreciated! Thanks in advance! =)