WordPress comes with a Recent Posts widget that you can use to display a list of your latest posts in your widgetized sidebar, but it’s really not very good in the fact that it does give you any control over your posts at all. So I’ve written a new one.
An enhanced version of this plugin is available from Code Canyon.net
This is a very simple plugin, but it gives you much better control over your widget display.
Plugin features include:
- New Recent Posts Widget
- Widget Title Option
- Option to control the number of posts displayed
- Option to control the posts offset
- Ability to enable post thumbnails
- Thumbnail size option
- Choose the post type to display
If you’d like me to write a tutorial on how to make a widget like this, let me know in the comments!
Change Log
v1.1 - added ability to choose which post type to display v1.1.1 - fixed a bug with post type detection v1.1.2 - added category selection v1.1.3 - fixed bug with select field options vanishing v1.1.4 - fixed offset bug and post type bug in posts queryDownload
Yes no problems. The site is currently running locally – its nearly finished so Ill get everything else up, make it live to the server and send over the login details. Thanks for your help
@Jenni – Cool, just send it to me in an email when ready.
Hi Pippin, the site is now live. Whats your email address?
@Jenni – go to my contact page.
Hey, Pippin! How do I get rid of dates on the widget? If I’m posting only a certain category, I don’t want to show that the post is older, if that makes sense. Thanks!
Ashley
@Ashley – That’s a feature available in the pro version, which you can pick up here for $4.
Thanks! I downloaded the Better Related Posts widget for $5, but I think it’s the wrong one. If I download the Better Recent Posts Pro widget, do I have the option to leave out the dates?
@Ashley – Yes, the Pro version has the option to hide the post dates. How did you pay $5 and download the wrong one?
Okay, I downloaded the pro version. Is there a way I can display posts from only a certain category, instead of the recent posts? In the free version, we were able to put in the category ID, but I don’t see that in this version. Thanks!
It’s a great widget!
Oh, just saw your question – I searched for your widgets, and that was the first one that popped up, and the titled looked similar, so I thought that was the widget you were talking about. Oops. Oh, well!
-Ashley
Yeah, I can’t seem to be able to get a single category to post, instead of just the recent posts. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have the category ID. Thanks!
@Ashley – See the option for “Taxonomy Term IDs to Display Posts From”. Enter the category IDs there, and make sure you select “category” above. Also, please ask any further comments related to the pro version here
any way to select multiple post types? I have 4 CPT’s I want to display, but don’t want 4 widgets.
@Brian – No, but I may be adding that feature to the Pro version some time soon.
[...] While I have left the output to nothing more than simple text messages, you can just as easily use the options to control a post query, just as I did with my Better Recent Posts Widget. [...]
Hi Pippin,
I really like this plugin, so simple but really effective. Thank you.
I’ve made an small update to the source code that was really crucial for me, and I thought I’d share incase others were looking for the same thing. It’s just an extra field for thumbnail height (the designs I had didn’t feature square images). I added timthumb to the directory to display the new sizes. It’s a really simple update and just add’s that extra bit of loveliness to the plugin. Let me know if you’d like me to email the updated version to you.
Andy
@Andy – Cool, thanks! Why don’t you go ahead and post instructions here for anyone else wanting to make the modification.
Hi Pippin and Andy – The ability to resize the thumbnails and not only have squared dimensions would be great. Can you guys post the solution on the comments so that everyone can benefit from it? Thanks a lot for your work!
@Jay – Andy did that update on his own, so if he’s willing to email the code to you, fantastic. Andy, if you want, go ahead and email it to me and I will publish it here.
I bought pro version from Code Canyon two days ago.
I’m sending extra thumbnail (50px) to wordpress with database manipulation.
(to wp-posts table as post_type=attachment )
How can I use it for side bar widget.. I’m using recent posts pro for both main content and sidebar.
Best regards
I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to do. As long as the image is set as the Featured Image on the posts, it will work fine.
[...] Better Recent Posts Widget [...]
This an awesome plugin, thanks for making it available. Quick question if you have time, do you know if there is anyway to have the dates removed from the bottom? Keep plugin away
The Pro version of the widget includes an option to show/hide the date. If you want to keep the free version, then you will have to modify it yourself. The pro version is here: http://codecanyon.net/item/better-recent-posts-widget-pro/318193
The free version was working great until we did the latest WordPress 3.4.1 update, and then the thumbnails disappeared
Any ideas on what we could do to make the thumbs reappear? Thanks!
Did they only disappear on the front end? I’m wondering if the “Featured Image” box has also disappeared when edited/creating a post.
Hy,
I have Post type called News. The News will be in English and German. Is it possible to display English news in English page and German news on German page.
Regards.,
Vivek
You will have to use a multi language / translation plugin to do this, but yes, it should be possible. Take a look at the qTranslate plugin.
your plugin didn’t display thumball on my site using WordPress 3.3.2. Pls fix it. Thanks
P/s: I’m waiting your fixing.
Are you using the “Featured Image” for setting the thumbnails?
When using your Better Recent Posts Widget free version and trying to sort by CategoryID, it still show other Categories. You got an idea why that is?
Can you give me a screenshot of your widget configuration?
Mailed you
Great. I will get to it as soon as I can.
Seems like there is a problem after the update to the latest wordpress version 3.4.1 .
I have thumb pics on my posts, after the update they are not longer showing.
Any idea what should I do?
Same thing happened on 2 sites, I’m sure it was the wordpress update…
Are you still able to set the “Featured Image” while editing or creating posts?
The option is there, but it won’t allow to add any new photos, weird thing is one pic is showing (out of 6), I tried to see why, but not much luck on that.
I have a plugin that auto sets those pics it’s not done manually, however I tried and wasn’t able to fix those manually as well.
Either your theme or another plugin is causing a conflict. I’d suggest deactivating each plugin one by one until you find the one causing it.
The only issue I’m having is in Internet Explorer the thumbnail size is ignored. Any idea on how I can fix that?
In what way is it ignored? Can you describe more please?
Is it possible to pull posts from another blog using rss?
No, not with this plugin.
Hi,
Is it possible to show complete Post content rather than just its title?
I would like to use it to show-up scheduled post from a category (one per day). This posts have nothing more than just few rows of text, nothing heavy, so it will fit nicely into sidebar.
Free version using.
Thanks!
The Pro version has the option to show the excerpt, but not the complete content.
Hi great widget, is there a way to use your widget on the page. I am looking at getting 4 recent posts (4 different categories) in columns next to each other underneath some content. So was looking for a short code please. Hope you can help. Thanks
There is not a short code, sorry.
Hey i was trying this plugin out because im interested in buying your “widget bundle” on codecanyon but I can’t get the thumbnails to display a different size even after configuring in the options. If I put a thumbnail size of 200 it creates a box thats 200px in width but the actual thumbnail is 75px.
This is the most important part for me and i wish i can cure these headaches and just find a plugin that works :-/
Do you know what could be the problem?
I just answered your same question on the .org support forums.
Hi Pippin, I just want to say a big thank you for this excellent recent posts widget, I’m setting up a site for a client on the nightclubbing theme from gorilla themes and no matter how I tried I couldn’t get the standard wordpress recent posts widget to work. I plugged yours in and wham, worked straight away.
Thankfully there are awesome coders like yourself. Top marks, I’ll be recommending you in my next wordpress blog post.
(huge smile)
Simon Templeton – internet & social media consultant
” That’s a feature available in the pro version, which you can pick up here for $4.”
Can you explain how I can pick it up for $4 pls? Only it seems in order for me to purchase you require me to open an account with a minimum $20 cash deposit and won’t give any change.
If you pay through PayPal (instead of a deposit) you can avoid the $20 minimum.
[...] 6. Better Recent Posts Widget Pro [...]
No matter what I put in the number to show field it always show the latest six posts.
Any suggestions on how to solve this?
Are you using the free or paid version?
Free version
Are you using an Elegant Themes theme by chance?
Yes I am.
I suspect if you change the Per Page option for Archives in the Elegant Themes ePanel options, the number will increase.
Elegant Themes over writes the per page in customer queries due to some rather lack-luster code quality. Their code quality has cost me hours and hours in support time.