robertdrake

This plugin creates the [Category]] Shortcode. The code takes 5 arguments:
number: the number of posts to display. 0 equals the default number. -1 equals the total available.
Order: Ascending or Descending
Display Method: Full, Excerpt, Title
Order By: Author, Date, Title, Modified, Parent, ID, Rand, None, or Comment Count.
Category: this is the category id the category or categories that should be searched. Multiple categories can be specified in a comma separated list.
Example shortcode:
[Category number=’5′ method=’title’ order=’asc’ id=’11,45′ orderby=’comment_count’]
This will show 5 posts in ascending order of category 11 and 45 as arranged by comment_count and will display just the post titles.
<h3>Acknowledgements</h3>
A big thank you to g33kg0dd3ss for figuring out the 1.3 fix issue with the loop being broken. She contributed the patch fix.
<h3>Future Additions?</h3>
<ol>
<li>
Let plugin form allow for multiple category selections
</li>
<li>
Let plugin form allow for multiple orderby methods
</li>
<li>
In admin form restrict Number of posts to numbers only.
</li>
<li>
In admin form setup a copy and paste script
</li>
<li>
Accept a category name as a valid input
</li>
<li>
Internationalization of the plugin
</li>
<li>
Improve Formatting of Posts / Make formatting easier to edit./ Give user more control over formatting
</li>
<li>
Allow attachments to come through
</li>
<li>
Turn title links on or off.
</li>
<li>
Allow comments in output
</li>
<li>
Give user more control over the postformatting
</li>
<li>
Add ability to modify thumbnail options through shortcode
</li>
</ol>

Category Shortcode

Plugin adds shortcode capability for adding posts by category to a page.

Shellbot

Posts by Category lets you display a list of posts pulled from a particular category or tag, and optionally 
group them by year, month or first letter of the post title.
Current features include:
<ul>
<li>Set a title to be displayed above list of posts</li>
<li>Shortcode allows post list to be inserted anywhere</li>
<li>Limit how many posts should be displayed</li>
<li>Group posts by year, month or first letter</li>
</ul>
Usage
To display the list of posts, add the following shortcode to your post or page.
Default settings:
<pre><code>[sb_category_posts]
</code></pre>
Custom settings:
<pre><code>[sb_category_posts show="10" cat="3" group_by="year"]
</code></pre>
For full list of parameters see <a href="http://codebyshellbot.com/wordpress-plugins/posts-by-category/" title="Posts by Category" rel="nofollow ugc">the plugin release page</a>

Posts by Category

Display a list of posts from a specific category or tag.

Category Shortcode vs Posts by Category