Modify Slider Code in Trim Theme to display Popular Posts instead of Category

(Not sure if this is the correct forum for this question?)

I am using the Trim Theme by Elegant Themes. I like the slider in this theme, but would like to modify the code a bit to change the query criteria from (currently) a specific category to (instead) popular posts.

Thing is, this theme comes with an epanel from which I can choose whichever category I wish to use as criteria…so there is something very dynamic going on (it’s not just coded specifically for one category). I’m not sure how to approach – i.e., where to even begin looking to make the change.

I have found a “featured.php” file that seems to be doing most of the work. Apparently the code is looking for whatever has been defined as the “featured” category (defined by the user).

I want to query based on popular posts. This is the code I *think* I should be looking at:

<div id="featured" class="flexslider<?php echo $featured_slider_class; ?>">
	<ul class="slides">
	<?php
		global $wp_embed, $ids;

		$ids = array();
		$arr = array();
		$i=1;

		$bottom_tabs_content = '';
		$featured_cat = get_option('trim_feat_cat');
		$featured_num = get_option('trim_featured_num');

		if (get_option('trim_use_pages') == 'false') query_posts("showposts=$featured_num&cat=".get_catId($featured_cat));( 'orderby' => 'comment_count' )
		else {
			global $pages_number;

			if (get_option('trim_feat_pages') <> '') $featured_num = count(get_option('trim_feat_pages'));
			else $featured_num = $pages_number;

			query_posts(array
							('post_type' => 'page',
							'orderby' => 'menu_order',
							'order' => 'ASC',
							'post__in' => (array) get_option('trim_feat_pages'),
							'showposts' => (int) $featured_num)
						);

And, within that, specifically this: if (get_option('trim_use_pages') == 'false') query_posts("showposts=$featured_num&cat=".get_catId($featured_cat));

I think I need to alter this somewhat to query posts by those with the most comments…Looking at the codex I see this as a query:

$query = new WP_Query( array( 'orderby' => 'comment_count' ) );

I tried changing the original “query_posts(“showposts…blahblah) to instead contain the ‘orderby’ and ‘comment_count’, but that did not work…most likely because I really have no idea what I’m doing right here ??

Any suggestions?

Thanks!