HelgaTheViking

I found I constantly needed a way for clients to mark a post as something they wanted to feature and I’ve never found sticky posts particularly inuitive and the UI is pretty hidden for new users. The simplest solution was a checkbox in prominently located metabox.
Please note that this plugin, by itself, will not change how your posts are displayed. It just gives the UI to users and a meta key to theme developers to query for.
<h4>Usage</h4>
This plugin simply adds a <code>_featured</code> meta key to every post with a value of <code>yes</code> for featured items and <code>no</code> for everything else. Actual display of the featured items is entirely up to the theme developer, but an example ( place in your template where you’d like to display a list of featured “Portfolios”) might be as follows:
<pre><code>// params for our query
$args = array(
 'post_type' => 'portfolio',
 'posts_per_page' => 5,
 'meta_key' => '_featured',
 'meta_value' => 'yes'
);

// The Query
$featured_portfolios = new WP_Query( $args );

// The Loop
if ( $featured_portfolios ) :

 echo '<ul class="featured">';

 while ( $featured_portfolios->have_posts() ) :
 $featured_portfolios->the_post();
 echo '<li>' . get_the_title() . '</li>';
 endwhile;

 echo '</ul>';

else :

 echo 'No featured portfolios found.';

endif;

/* Restore original Post Data
 * NB: Because we are using new WP_Query we aren't stomping on the
 * original $wp_query and it does not need to be reset.
*/
wp_reset_postdata();
</code></pre>
Multiple queries per page load can slow down your site so it is worthwhile to take advantage of the <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Transients_API" rel="nofollow ugc">Transients API</a>, so an alternate usage would be:
<pre><code>// Get any existing copy of our transient data
if ( false === ( $featured_portfolios = get_transient( 'featured_portfolios' ) ) ) {
 // It wasn't there, so regenerate the data and save the transient

 // params for our query
 $args = array(
 'post_type' => 'portfolio',
 'posts_per_page' => 5,
 'meta_key' => '_featured',
 'meta_value' => 'yes'
 );

 // The Query
 $featured_portfolios = new WP_Query( $args );

 // store the transient
 set_transient( 'featured_portfolios', $featured_portfolios );

}

// Use the data like you would have normally...

// The Loop
if ( $featured_portfolios ) :

 echo '<ul class="featured">';

 while ( $featured_portfolios->have_posts() ) :
 $featured_portfolios->the_post();
 echo '<li>' . get_the_title() . '</li>';
 endwhile;

 echo '</ul>';

else :

 echo 'No featured portfolios found.';

endif;

/* Restore original Post Data
 * NB: Because we are using new WP_Query we aren't stomping on the
 * original $wp_query and it does not need to be reset.
*/
wp_reset_postdata();
</code></pre>
Then to ensure that your featured posts list is updated, add a function to your theme’s functions.php to delete the transient when a portfolio (in this example) post type is saved.
<pre><code>// Create a function to delete our transient when a portfolio post is saved
function save_post_delete_featured_transient( $post_id ) {
 if ( 'portfolio' == get_post_type( $post_id ) )
 delete_transient( 'featured_portfolios' );
}
// Add the function to the save_post hook so it runs when posts are saved
add_action( 'save_post', 'save_post_delete_featured_transient' );
</code></pre>
Simple queries should only need the <code>meta_key</code> and <code>meta_value</code> parameters, but if you need something more advanced then you might want to read about how to use the more <a href="http://scribu.net/wordpress/advanced-metadata-queries.html" rel="nofollow ugc">complex Meta Query parameters</a>.
<h4>Support</h4>
Support is handled in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/featured-item-metabox" rel="ugc">WordPress forums</a>. Please note that support is limited and does not cover any custom implementation of the plugin.
Please report any bugs, errors, warnings, code problems at <a href="https://github.com/helgatheviking/Featured-Item-Metabox/issues" rel="nofollow ugc">Github</a>

Featured Item Metabox

Quickly add a metabox to any post type for marking a post as featured.  Toggle featured status even more quickly from the posts lists/ quick edit scre …

Willy Bahuaud

This plugin add a metabox which allox to upload and link multiple images to one post. 
Pictures are linked by the way of meta_value (and attachments ID). They can be reordered using drag and drop.
Number of allowed pictures and concerned post types can be overited using hooks.
Plugin includes many functions to retrieve linked pictures. 
For more information on using the plugin, refer to the section <a href="/extend/plugins/multi-image-metabox/other_notes/" rel="nofollow ugc">“Other Notes”</a>.
<h3>Set concerned post types</h3>
Paste this into your theme’s functions.php file :
 
<h3>Set allowed number of picts</h3>
Paste this into your theme’s functions.php file : 
 ‘_image1’, 
 ‘image2’ => ‘_image2’, 
 ); 
 return $picts; 
 } 
 ?>
<h4>Set allowed number of picts, depending to the post_type</h4>
Paste this into your theme’s functions.php file : 
 add_filter(‘list_images’,’my_list_images’,10,2); 
 function my_list_images($list_images, $cpt){ 
 global $typenow; 
 if($typenow == “my_custom_post_type” || $cpt == “my_custom_post_type”) 
 $picts = array( 
 ‘image1’ => ‘_image1’, 
 ‘image2’ => ‘_image2’, 
 ‘image3’ => ‘_image3’, 
 ); 
 else 
 $picts = array( 
 ‘image1’ => ‘_image1’, 
 ‘image2’ => ‘_image2’, 
 ‘image3’ => ‘_image3’, 
 ‘image4’ => ‘_image4’, 
 ‘image5’ => ‘_image5’, 
 ‘image6’ => ‘_image6’, 
 ‘image7’ => ‘_image7’, 
 ‘image8’ => ‘_image8’, 
 ); 
 return $picts; 
 }
<h3>get_images_ids()</h3>
This function have to be used into a template file, or any function. 
It return an array of the linked attachments’s ID.
It take two arguments whose are :
<ol>
<li>include the thumbnail ? (boolean) if true include the thumbnail in the returned datas</li>
<li>
ID (integer) for targeting images linked to a specific post
 45, 
 ‘image1’ => 5, 
 ‘image2’ => 6, 
 ‘image3’ => 12, 
 ‘image6’ => 20, 
 ‘image7’ => 15 
);
//Empty pictures ar not returned
?>
<h3>get_images_src()</h3>
This function have to be used into a template file, or any function. 
It return an array of URIs and dimension for the linked attachments’s, by order.
</li>
</ol>
It take three agruments whose are :
<ol>
<li>size (string) the size to return</li>
<li>include the thumbnail ? (boolean) if true include the thumbnail in the returned datas</li>
<li>
ID (integer) for targeting images linked to a specific post
 array( 
 [0] => ‘http://url_of_the_medium_pict.jpg’, 
 [1] => 340, 
 [2] => 200, 
 [3] => false //I’ve no idea what is it… 
 ), 
 ‘image2’ => array( 
 [0] => ‘http://url_of_the_medium_second_pict.jpg’, 
 [1] => 340, 
 [2] => 200, 
 [3] => false //I’ve no idea what is it… 
 ) 
);
?>
<h3>get_multi_images_src()</h3>
Same as get_image_src(), but return two sizes for all the pictures.
</li>
</ol>
It take for agruments whose are :
<ol>
<li>size (string) the size to return</li>
<li>size2 (string) another size to return</li>
<li>include the thumbnail ? (boolean) if true include the thumbnail in the returned datas</li>
<li>
ID (integer) for targeting images linked to a specific post
 array( 
 [0] => array( 
 [0] => ‘http://url_of_the_medium_pict.jpg’, 
 [1] => 340, 
 [2] => 200, 
 [3] => false //I’ve no idea what is it… 
 ), 
 [1] => array( 
 [0] => ‘http://url_of_the_full_pict.jpg’, 
 [1] => 1020, 
 [2] => 600, 
 [3] => false //I’ve no idea what is it… 
 ), 
 ), 
 ‘image2’ => array( 
 [0] => array( 
 [0] => ‘http://url_of_the_medium_second_pict.jpg’, 
 [1] => 340, 
 [2] => 200, 
 [3] => false //I’ve no idea what is it… 
 ), 
 [1] => array( 
 [0] => ‘http://url_of_the_second_full_pict.jpg’, 
 [1] => 1020, 
 [2] => 600, 
 [3] => false //I’ve no idea what is it… 
 ) 
 ) 
); 
//Empty pictures ar not returned
?></li>
</ol>

Multi Image Metabox

Add a multi-image metabox to your posts, pages and custom post types

Featured Item Metabox vs Multi Image Metabox