linux4me2

<p>This widget allows you to insert arbitrary Text and/or HTML code (optional) to precede a list of recent posts by category. It makes it easy to add introductory comments and to achieve interesting effects like wrapping your posts list around an image. It’s designed to be lightweight and easy on resources.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Note: Widget Blocks, added in WordPress 5.8, make this plugin no longer necessary. The same results can be obtained by using a Widget Group, Heading Block, Custom HTML Block, and the  Latest Posts Block. The latter also allows the use of multiple categories, which is not available with this plugin. Unless something major happens to change things, I won’t be developing the plugin beyond the current version (2.0.0).</p>
</blockquote>


HTML Plus Recent Posts by Category Widget

Like the Legacy Recent Posts widget, but adds the ability to select the category and add text or HTML before the list of posts.

TechWebUX

Aleksandar Urošević

<p>Posts per Cat is a simple plugin that grab all or only selected categories from blog database, and then list recent N posts from each category, organised in 1-5 columns.</p>
<p>If you are interested to acquisition of plugin, please <a href="https://urosevic.net/wordpress/contact/?subject=Posts-per-Cat%20Acquisition" rel="nofollow ugc">contact us</a>.</p>
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>choose how many boxes per row will be displayed (one, two, three, four or five)</li>
<li>define number of post titles to display per category</li>
<li>define category ID’s to exclude</li>
<li>define category ID’s to include</li>
<li>toggle displaying of child categories</li>
<li>ordering boxes by category ID, title or custom (manually entered category ID’s as include list)</li>
<li>toggle displaying sticky posts</li>
<li>toggle usage of custom list CSS</li>
<li>SEO optimized permalink URI’s</li>
<li>integrate to template file, use shortcode [ppc] with options or widget</li>
<li>ready for localisation</li>
<li>template system for single post line in box defined by user in plain HTML with macro keywords for post elements</li>
</ul>
<h4>Shortcode options</h4>
<p>You can use shortcode [ppc], with options below (set option in shortcode to override default settings above):</p>
<ul>
<li><code>columns=2</code> – Number of columns (1, 2, 3, 4 or 5)</li>
<li><code>minh=0</code> – Minimal height of box (in px, set to 0 for auto)</li>
<li><code>include=category_ID's</code> – Include category (comma separated category ID’s)</li>
<li><code>exclude=category_ID's</code> – Exclude category (comma separated category ID’s)</li>
<li><code>parent=0</code> – Only top level categories (0 or 1)</li>
<li><code>order=ID</code> – Order categories by (ID, name or custom)</li>
<li><code>catonly=0</code> – Only from displayed category archive (0 or 1)</li>
<li><code>noctlink=0</code> – Do not link category name (0 or 1)</li>
<li><code>more=0</code> – Standalone link to archives (0 or 1)</li>
<li><code>moretxt="More from"</code> – Archive link prefix</li>
<li><code>posts=5</code> – Number of headlines per category block</li>
<li><code>porderby=date</code> – Order posts by date, modified, title, name, ID, author</li>
<li><code>porder=DESC</code> – Order sorting DESC or ASC</li>
<li><code>titlelen=34</code> – Headline length (in characters)</li>
<li><code>shorten=0</code> – Shorten headline (0 or 1)</li>
<li><code>commnum=0</code> – Display comment number (0 or 1)</li>
<li><code>nosticky=0</code> – Hide sticky posts (0 or 1)</li>
<li><code>excerpts=none</code> – Show excerpt (none, first or all)</li>
<li><code>content=0</code> – Use post content as excerpt (0 or 1)</li>
<li><code>excleng=100</code> – Excerpt length</li>
<li><code>thumb=0</code> – Show thumbnail with excerpt (0 or 1)</li>
<li><code>tsize=60</code> – Thumbnail size, set size in px for thumbnail width (height is same); or set in format WIDTHxHEIGHT (example 220×123); or set predefined custom image size (thumbnail, small, medium, large, full or cusotm defined)</li>
</ul>
<p>Since version 1.4.0 you can use template to display custom formatted output (post line element). Example:<br />
    [ppc]</p>
<h3><a href="%link%" rel="nofollow ugc">%title_short%</a></h3>
<pre><code><span class="comments-meta">(<a href="%comments_link%">%comments_num% comments</a>)</span>
<span class="date-meta">%date% @ %time%</span>
<span class="author-meta"><a href="%author_posts_url%">%author_displayname%</a></span>
%thumbnail%
%excerpt% <a href="%link%">[read more]</a>
[/ppc]
</code></pre>
<p>Supported macros:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>%title%</code></li>
<li><code>%title_short%</code></li>
<li><code>%post_content%</code></li>
<li><code>%excerpt%</code></li>
<li><code>%thumbnail%</code></li>
<li><code>%link%</code></li>
<li><code>%comments_num%</code></li>
<li><code>%comments_link%</code></li>
<li><code>%comments_form_link%</code></li>
<li><code>%datetime%</code></li>
<li><code>%date%</code></li>
<li><code>%time%</code></li>
<li><code>%author_displayname%</code></li>
<li><code>%author_firstname%</code></li>
<li><code>%author_lastname%</code></li>
<li><code>%author_posts_url%</code></li>
</ul>


Posts per Cat

Group recent posts by category and show them inside boxes organized to columns.

HTML Plus Recent Posts by Category Widget vs Posts per Cat