Can you pass a parameter to an HTML view through a URL?

Can you pass a parameter to an HTML view through a URL?

If I'm embedding a view in my Web site, is it possible to pass a parameter to the form through a link in a URL? So if I had a URL like

www.mysite.com?category_id=3

then the HTML view would know that the variable category_id is 3? Or can you only pass parameters through forms?

If you can only do it via forms, can someone point me to a good example of such a form? Thanks very much. I'm trying to do a page where someone selects a category, and then sees results from the database based on that category.