darrinb

<p><em>Build a better post list.</em></p>
<p>The Advanced Posts Widget is an enhanced version of the default WordPress Recent Posts widget.  It allows for greater customization and stying of your recent content lists.</p>
<p>Make your post lists stand out with this highly customizable recent post widget!</p>
<p><strong>Features</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Build multiple lists!</li>
<li>Select which post types to display.  (You can choose either all types, or a specific type.)</li>
<li>Set the number of posts to show.</li>
<li>Choose how to order your posts: publish date, alphabetically, random, etc.</li>
<li>Set the order for displaying the posts.</li>
<li>Filter by category, tag, or custom taxonomy.</li>
<li>Supports post thumbnails.</li>
<li>Set <em>and preview</em> custom thumbnail sizes, or choose from your site’s registered image sizes.</li>
<li>Show an excerpt of the post.</li>
<li>Set <em>and preview</em> the length of the excerpt.</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>Select the listing format. Choose between <code>html5</code> or <code>xhtml</code>.</li>
<li>Show post date.</li>
<li>Set <em>and preview</em> multiple date formats.</li>
<li>Choose the default (basic) CSS styling or roll your own.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Developer Features</strong></p>
<p>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!</p>
<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-posts-widget</li>
</ul>
<p>For sample functions check out this small testing plugin: https://github.com/dboutote/Advanced-Posts-Widget-Testing</p>


Advanced Posts Widget

I tested quite a few different Recent Posts Widgets and they all had bugs or outdated code or lack of flexibility or simple settings for their images and whatnot. This plugin does all the things you need:
* Set your thumbnail size from a list of registered image sizes
* Choose your category
* Choose your post type
* Even works with the Organize Series plugin well
* Order by recency, title, or even random (my favorite)
Combine this with the Display Widgets plugin and you have a powerful and flexible and intuitive sidebar that works great with your theme. 
Well done!



Exactly what my blog needed

A powerful and flexible recent posts widget for WordPress for displaying customized content lists.  Supports all custom post types and taxonomies!

Daniel Floeter

Mark-k

Mrinal Roy

<p>Category Posts Widget is a light widget designed to do one thing and do it well: display the most recent posts from a certain category.</p>
<h4>Term and Category based Posts Widget</h4>
<p>A premium version of that free widget available at <a href="https://tiptoppress.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">tiptoppress.com</a> created for big WordPress sites.</p>
<h4>Premium features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Auto-sizing Grid layout</li>
<li>Custom field support in the Template</li>
<li>Shortcode support in the Template</li>
<li>Image-Slider (or News-Ticker)</li>
<li>Asymmetrical list layouts</li>
<li>Full background images</li>
<li>Masonry responsive grid layout</li>
<li>More complex filter (ANY, NOT, AND, …)</li>
<li>Custom Post Types, Events, Products support</li>
<li>All free features</li>
<li>E-Mail support</li>
<li>More examples on the <a href="https://demo.tiptoppress.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">demo pages</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://tiptoppress.com/template-arrange-post-details/" rel="nofollow ugc">Template</a> to arrange the post details.</li>
<li>The Template text can be a post details placeholder, plain text, HTML or a font-icons.</li>
<li>Font-icon support.</li>
<li>‘Load more’ button / Ajax API</li>
<li>Item Title heading level buttons</li>
<li>Excerpt length and item title in lines (line-clamp)</li>
<li>Shortcode (Easily change all Shortcode options in the customizer).</li>
<li>Date range filter</li>
<li>New date format: Time since plublished</li>
<li>Filter by post status: Published, scheduled, private.</li>
<li>Multiple shortcodes at the same site or post.</li>
<li>Add option for post offset (use two or more widgets after another).</li>
<li>Admin UI: Buttons in the editor toolbar to insert shortcode.</li>
<li>Option to touch device friendly “everything is a link”.</li>
<li>For editing shortcode adds a Customizer link to the admin-bar (“With one click to the Customizer”).</li>
<li>Set thumbnail width & height / image crop with CSS (object-fit).</li>
<li>Fluid images (max-width in %).</li>
<li>One thumb dimension can be left empty.</li>
<li>Option to set mouse hover effects for post thumbnail.</li>
<li>Set a default thumbnail.</li>
<li>Hide widget text or text, if there is no post.</li>
<li>Option to hide posts which have no thumbnail.</li>
<li>Option exclude current post.</li>
<li>Option show post author, comment’s count, post date.</li>
<li>Admin UI: Set / find thumbnail size buttons: +, ¼, ½, 2x, -, ratio and Media sizes</li>
<li>Admin UI: Buttons to easy add post details placeholder.</li>
<li>Multi sites support.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Documentation</h4>
<ul>
<li>Full <a href="https://tiptoppress.com/category-posts-widget/documentation-4-9" rel="nofollow ugc">documentation</a></li>
<li>Shortcode: Use [catposts] in the content and <a href="https://tiptoppress.com/use-shortcode-to-add-category-posts-widget-to-the-content/" rel="nofollow ugc">edit in the customizer</a></li>
<li>Formatting date and time: See <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Formatting_Date_and_Time" rel="nofollow ugc">Formatting Date and Time</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Contribute</h4>
<p>While using this plugin if you find any bug or any conflict, please submit an issue at<br />
<a href="https://github.com/DanielFloeter/category-posts-widget" rel="nofollow ugc">Github</a> (If possible with a pull request).</p>


Category Posts Widget

Very easy to customize the view, as a widget or shortcode. Utilizes the customizer to customize the shortcode display. Elegant.

Very useful and works perfect

Adds a widget that shows the most recent posts from a single category.

Advanced Posts Widget vs Category Posts Widget