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.

Tiago Madeira

The website of the brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo has a nice way to 
display news in a retrospective-style (check <a href="http://blog.tiagomadeira.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/estadao.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc">this 
screenshot</a> 
or <a href="http://www.estadao.com.br/especiais/choque-nas-ruas,158638.htm" rel="nofollow ugc">this link</a> 
— Flash required).
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could display WordPress posts in our pages and 
categories in the same way just by using a shortcode? The possibilities are 
many. That’s why I wrote the Retrospective plugin for WordPress.
It has at least two advantages over the version you just saw:
<ul>
<li>Does not require Flash (its implementation uses only CSS and jQuery)</li>
<li>Has a option to respect the (time-)scale of the posts.</li>
</ul>
See Installation for more info on how to use it.

Retrospective

Retrospective plugin displays last posts or posts from a specific category in a nice-looking "retrospective" way using a shortcode.

Category Shortcode vs Retrospective