Advanced Recent Posts Widget
A light widget advanced version of the WordPress Recent Posts widget allowing increased customization to display recent posts from multiple categories or from custom post types.
Features:
* Display post thumbnails, with customizable size and automatic resizing using timthumb script.
* Display post excerpt, date, comment count, and more.
* Provides option to:
***show the post excerpt and how long the excerpt should be.
***show the post excerpt and how long the excerpt should be.
***show the post date.
***show read more link
***show the comment count.
***override the post order to order by; date, title, random, comment count etc.
***select multiple categories
***select custom post type
* Multiple widgets.
Installation
1. Download the plugin.
2. Upload it to the plugins folder of your blog.
3. Goto the Plugins section of the WordPress admin and activate the plugin.
4. Goto the Widget tab of the Presentation section and configure the widget.
5. Changing the CSS – If you need to configure the CSS style of Advanced Recent Posts Widget, you can copy the ‘advanced-recent-posts-widget.css’ file from the plugin directory to your theme’s directory and make your modifications there. This way, you won’t lose your changes when you update the plugin.
Frequently Asked Questions / Usage
1: Title
Default: Recent Posts
This field sets the title of the widget. It works the same as every other widget.
2: Sort by
Default: Date
Override the post order to order by; date, title, random, comment count
3: Reverse sort order (ascending)
Default: DESC
Change post sort order to ASC
4: Include post excerpt
Default: no
Displays the post excerpt of each post.
5: Excerpt length (in words)
Default: 5
Limits the numbers of words to display of each posts excerpt.
6: Include read more link in excerpt
Default: no
Include read more link in excerpt
7: Excerpt read more text
Default: Read more →
Set the read more link text
8: Include post date
Default: no
Include post date in posts
9: Show number of comments
Default: no
Include number of comments posts
10: Number of posts
Default: 5
Changes how many posts are displayed in the widget.
11: Show post thumbnail
Default: no
Displays the post thumbnails of each post.
12: Thumbnail dimensions
Default: 50 x 50
Sets the size of the post thumbnail in pixels.
13: Categories
Default: all
Sets the categories to display posts from.
14: Show Post Type
Default: post
Sets the post type / custom post type to display
I just downloaded your plugin and everything looks great except I don’t see #11, #12 … on my widget there’s not an option to show post thumbnail.
Any ideas ?
Thanks … Scott
Hey Scott,
Thank you for downloading the plugin. The options are not showing because your current theme doesn’t support post thumbnails.
Add this somewhere on your current theme functions.php:
// This theme uses post thumbnails
add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );
Hi,
Is there a way to reference the thumbnails via custom fields. The auto size for the thumbnails is pulling from the featured image that does not look good as a thumbnail. I would like to set it if possible.
thank you,
Hey Carlos,
At the moment that’s not possible.
[...] out the plugin’s homepage for more information and full documentation. Download the Advanced Recent Posts Widget plugin from [...]
[...] out the plugin’s homepage for more information and full documentation. Download the Advanced Recent Posts Widget plugin from [...]
[...] out the plugin’s homepage for more information and full documentation. Download the Advanced Recent Posts Widget plugin from [...]
[...] out the plugin’s homepage for more information and full documentation. Download the Advanced Recent Posts Widget plugin from [...]
[...] out the plugin’s homepage for more information and full documentation. Download the Advanced Recent Posts Widget plugin from [...]
Hi,
Thanks for this plugin
I’ve got 2 problems :
- Special characters (é, è, …) dont display correctly.
- Thumbnails are not showing.
Any idea ?
I will look at the special charactesr problem. For thumbnails, are you using the Feature Image functionality? you can send me wp-admin log ins I take a look.
Hi, thanks for your great job. I have a little problem with excerpt lenght, it doesn’t works with the famous Atahualpa 3.7.1 theme (with default theme it works). If you want, can you ceck the compatibility issue? You can download this theme at official wordpress directory.
Hey Enrico, l will download the theme and see where the problem is arising from.
If that can help you, YD Recent Posts Widget excerpt lenght works fine, but can’t made multi widget, so i need so much your plugin, with a fix (or just the code to apply manually).
Thanks a lot.
I would love to have my excerpt have the original formatting from the blog post. Is that possible?
It’s possible by tweaking the css. Copy this css file wp-content/plugins/advanced-recent-posts-widget/css/advanced-recent-posts-widget.css to your current theme folder and you make your css changes/modifications.
Hello, is it possible to get the date and title on one line?
Now it displays the date below the title on a new line..
it’s possible, at the moment using css….whats your blog link?
Great plug-in, nice work! I am also having trouble getting the thumbnails to work. I’m developing locally at the moment, so I can’t share a log-in with you. My theme does support post thumbnails. Once published, the post shows up in the widget with the 50×50 box where the image thumbnail should be, but no image – like a broken referral link.
Are you using the feature image options?
Great plugin, thank you! I’m having a problem with the alignment….the post titles are going outside of my sidebar. Any idea how I can edit that?
Thank you!
I think it’s a css issue…just checked http://www.kbkcommunications.com/blog/ and saw the issue. Go to wp-content/plugins/advanced-recent-posts-widget/css/ and copy advanced-recent-posts-widget.css to your current active theme your site is using. Then thereafter open the file and on line 26, add width:auto !important or simply in your style.css add
.advanced_recent_posts_widget ul li {width: auto !important;
}
Hi, I’m using your plugin, it’s great – but I can’t seem to get it to allow /**/ tags to work from post snippet. Any ideas?
Hi Scott – loving the plugin – a real help.
One quick question – I’d rather not have the precent posts in a list – Can you tell me which bit of code I need to snip to remove this? I don’t wish to break the php file!
check advanced-recent-posts-widget.php…..I will be updating the plugin to include options of whether to display as li’s, p or divs
Hi. Thanks for the great widget!
I’m in the process of creating a page on my blog that lists an amount of recent comments… this was made very easy with the use of your widget. So far everything works perfectly. What I want to do now is get the widget to list recent comments as well as their nested replies. I’ve also installed the WordPress Thread Comment plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-thread-comment/…
Is there a way i can modify the code of your widget to also display the nested comment replies?
Cheers!
Oops. Sorry, right question sent to the wrong people.
Please ignore this question. Thanks!
Hi,
I downloaded the plug in and it doesnt show the thumnails. I also did this:
Add this somewhere on your current theme functions.php:
// This theme uses post thumbnails
add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ );
But still not working. help!
Thanks!
Natalia
Nevermind. I read some other comments and got the problem fixed. I wasn’t using the feature image options.
Thanks!
Natalia
No problem, I was just about to respond
Hi,
Great plugin! just having a problem with showing the thumbnails and i’ve noticed above you said about the feature image options – i’m not quite sure where these options are… sorry i’m probably being a little thick! Can you point me in the right direction.
Thank you!
Dorothy
Hi
i found the feature image option – it was part of the wordpress options on the edit post page. So i made the image on the post a feature image and now i have the space where the thumbnail should be but no thumbnail… can you tell me where i’m going wrong.
Thank you!
Dorothy
Hey Dorothy,
My apologies for late response. Whats your site url, I take a look.
Regards,
Anthony
Hi there
Thank you for your reply
it’s http://www.dorothysulzmann.co.uk
Thank you
Hi,
Thanks for useful plugin, but i’m having a problem with excerpt length (in words), its always showing all words, even though I set it to 3 or 5 words.
Please help
Best Regards,
Okie
great plugin, an information file tim thumb and how can I update it to version 2.8 to 2.8.9 I have problems with security
i have updated timthumb script, thanks for pointing this out.
My trim excerpt fix is at pastebin http://pastebin.com/ckLx1utD
cool, let me check it out!
Thanks for the great plugin. I want to reformat the date. I edited the advanced-recent-posts-widget.php file and changed line 154 from:
to:
That way it uses my default WP date setting. Is there a way to make this change permanent so I doesn’t get overwritten during a plugin update?
I will add a capability for user to specify the date format without editing the plugin files
Love the plugin. Is there a way I can limit the posts to a certain author? Like an if statement that would look for a variable I’ve already set in the header, and then show only that author’s recent posts, or else show the most recent of everyone?
you have to dig in to the plugin code to achieve this.
Hi
I’m having problems displaying thumbnails. I have added add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ ); to my theme and aslo set a featured image for my post. But thumbnail is still not appearing.
I can see the alt text for the thumbnail.
I’m sure missing something simple… thanks for your support.
can you check if the cache folder under /wp-content/plugins/advanced-recent-posts-widget/timthumb is writtable
I just activated it and it seems to work well. The only problem is that I have a blue dot, bulletpoint, whatever showing up transposed over the first letter. I’ve tried adjusting the letters a bit but I can’t figure it out.Thanks, Dick.
This is a css issue, you may try putting this in your css :
li{ list-style:none;}When I hover over a post the pop-up text is “permanent link to [postname]“. Is there a way to make that hover text simply say [postname]?
You have to manually edit the plugin files, provide me with ftp and I will rectify this for you.
Hey,
Great Work with the plugin. I am facing a little problem getting thumbnails to show up.
I have a custom theme with post thumbnails enabled.
I am using the Featured Image option to set the featured image.
The images are set as featured images but they do not show up in the widget. I would not be able to give you a link to the website as it is on my development server and not live. Any ideas how i can fix this issue or what might be the problem ?
Could you navigate to /wp-content/plugins/advanced-recent-posts-widget/timthumb and check if the cache folder permission are set to 755/777
Awesome plugin!
Is there a way I can remove the “list”
I want the post to show normal, without the list format
At the moment there is no possibility but by the end of this month, I will be updating the plugin which will make it possible either to use a li’s or p or div’s
i find it weird. i’m using wootheme’s swatch theme. in the functions.php, i added that:
// This theme uses post thumbnails
add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ );
but the thumbnail still not showing. i can only see the thumbnail if i’m logged in!
Using ftp, could you navigate to /wp-content/plugins/advanced-recent-posts-widget/timthumb and check if the cache folder permission are set to 755/777
When I save my widget options (I use Widget Logic) your widget disappears from where I have dragged it (which is my Secondary Widget Area).
Any ideas why?
Is it possible you provide temporary log ins to wp-admin, i have a look at this?
Hi there,
Need help. No images showing up.
// This theme uses post thumbnails
add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ ); is in my functions.php and I have used featured image.
Please assist.
Thanks.
Using ftp, could you navigate to /wp-content/plugins/advanced-recent-posts-widget/timthumb and check if the cache folder permission are 755/777
Thanks…it works. Thumbs up for the quick response