darrinb

Build a better category list.
The Advanced Categories Widget is a powerful and flexible category widget for WordPress that makes building and displaying custom category lists a snap.
Organize your site in style with this highly customizable category widget!
Features
<ul>
<li>Build multiple lists!</li>
<li>Select which categories to display.</li>
<li>Choose how to order your categories: name, post count, etc.</li>
<li>Set the order for displaying the categories.</li>
<li>Supports category thumbnails.</li>
<li>Set and preview custom thumbnail sizes, or choose from your site’s registered image sizes.</li>
<li>Show a description of each category.</li>
<li>Set and preview the length of the description.</li>
<li>Select the list format to match your site’s markup. Choose from:<code>ol</code>, <code>ul</code>, or <code>div</code>.</li>
<li>Show post count.</li>
<li>Choose the default (basic) CSS styling or roll your own.</li>
</ul>
Developer Features
This widget was built not only with end-users in mind, but also plugin developers. Almost every aspect of this widget is extensible through filters and action hooks. You can even add your own form fields to the widget form!
<ul>
<li>Need to remove a field from the widget form? Not a problem! Every field is passed through its own filter for easy customization.</li>
<li>Need to modify the output of the widget? Easy! The output is passed through numerous filters, allowing you to customize the post list to meet your project’s requirements.</li>
<li>For a full list of action hooks and filters, please see the plugin documentation: http://darrinb.com/plugins/advanced-categories-widget</li>
</ul>

Advanced Categories Widget

A highly customizable categories widget for WordPress with thumbnails and descriptions.

inselpark

After user installs and activates the plugin the new widget will appear in the widget page of your WordPress website back-end.
User can drag the widget in any of the sidebars and create as much instances of it as he/she wants.
Additional options that are available are: 
1) Categories to exclude – insert id’s of the categories you want to exclude from the front end sidebar separated by comma 
2) Single category to display – if you want to display only one category with it’s subcategories just enter it’s id in this input field 
3) Display post count – if you choose yes the post count will show up next to the category name or if you choose no the post count won’t be displayed

Widgetized Categories

Widgetized categories is the plugin that allows the user to add the categories widget in the sidebar with additional options.

Advanced Categories Widget vs Widgetized Categories