Nilambar Sharma

<h3>NS Featured Posts</h3>
This plugin adds checkboxes for each list item. You can easily check/uncheck the Featured flag. Checking the Featured will set the meta value yes for meta key _is_ns_featured_post. You can choose which post types you want Featured functionality from plugin settings.
<h4>Using in theme</h4>
This plugin only sets/unsets the meta key for assigned posts. You need to implement it in your theme to get Featured functionality.
Example:
<pre><code>$query = new WP_Query( array( 'meta_key' => '_is_ns_featured_post', 'meta_value' => 'yes' ) );
</code></pre>
This will fetch the list of posts that are checked as Featured.
Want to see how this can be used in a Page Template? 
<a href="https://gist.github.com/ernilambar/ad31b89b459e954fc950" rel="nofollow ugc">Click this link to see an example</a>

NS Featured Posts

A plugin for making posts, pages, or custom post types featured. Users can enable/disable Featured flags for selected post types.

Chinmoy

The Extended Featured Content Widget is a powerful, light weight wordpress widget. You can decide, whether or not the post thumbnail is displayed, 
whether the post title, post info, meta, content etc are above or beneath the thumbnail and a couple of more things. And of course, you can style 
the widget individually. You can filter the content by category, post tags, taxonomy. Also you can include/exclude specific terms or 
post/page specific items by ID(s). And many more features are integrated in this plugin.
Widget Features:
<ol>
<li>Supporting Post, page</li>
<li>Supporting Filter by Category, Tag</li>
<li>Include/Exclude categories/tags by ID field</li>
<li>Include/Exclude post/page items by ID field</li>
<li>Turn on or Off Post title, thumbnail, post info, content etc</li>
<li>Order by Date, ID, comment count, random</li>
<li>Supporting offset field</li>
<li>4 Type Content option
<ul>
<li>Full Content </li>
<li>Excerpt </li>
<li>Content by Character Limit </li>
<li>No Content</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Multiple Hooks and Filters for adding additional content</li>
<li>Select featured image size from drop down</li>
<li>Select Image alignment and Image position</li>
</ol>
Shortcodes Syntax for Post Info & Meta
<ul>
<li>
Post Date
[post_date after=”” before=”” label=”” format=”DATE FORMAT”]
</li>
<li>
Post Time
[post_time after=”” before=”” label=”” format=”TIME FORMAT”]
</li>
<li>
Post Author Name
[post_author after=”” before=””]
</li>
<li>
Post Author Name with Author Site link
[post_author_link after=”” before=””]
</li>
<li>
Post Author Name with Author Archive link
[post_author_posts_link after=”” before=””]
</li>
<li>
Post Comments Number
[post_comments after=”” before=”” more=’% Comments’ one=’1 Comment’ zero=’Leave a Comment’]
</li>
<li>
Post Tags
[post_tags after=”” before=”Tagged With” sep=’, ‘]
</li>
<li>
Post Categories
[post_categories after=”” before=”Filed In” sep=’, ‘]
</li>
</ul>
How it is working
Here is the some examples:
<ol>
<li><a href="http://pwdtechnology.com/grid-view-template-twenty-fourteen-theme-using-efcwp-plugin/" title="3 Columns Grid Style" rel="nofollow ugc">3 Columns Grid Style</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pwdtechnology.com/creating-extra-widget-area-home-page-twenty-fourteen-theme/" title="Featured Content on Home Page" rel="nofollow ugc">Featured Content on Home Page</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pwdtechnology.com/displaying-custom-post-type-content-using-efcwp-plugin/" title="Custom Post Type Demo" rel="nofollow ugc">Custom Post Type Demo</a></li>
</ol>
This plugin is using lot of hooks and filters. Here is the list of those Hooks & Filters
Hooks
<ul>
<li>efwp_before_loop</li>
<li>efwp_before_featured_post_content</li>
<li>efwp_featured_post_content</li>
<li>efwp_after_featured_post_content</li>
<li>efwp_inside_loop</li>
<li>efwp_after_loop</li>
</ul>
Filters
<ul>
<li>post_content_limit_allowedtags</li>
<li>get_the_efwp_post_content_limit</li>
<li>the_efwp_post_content_limit</li>
<li>efwp_do_post_meta</li>
<li>efwp_do_post_info</li>
<li>efwp_post_date_shortcode</li>
<li>efwp_post_time_shortcode</li>
<li>efwp_post_author_shortcode</li>
<li>efwp_post_author_link_shortcode</li>
<li>efwp_post_author_posts_link_shortcode</li>
<li>efwp_post_comments_shortcode</li>
<li>efwp_post_tags_shortcode</li>
<li>efwp_post_categories_shortcode</li>
</ul>
PRO Version have following features:
<ol>
<li>Supporting Post, page, custom post type</li>
<li>Supporting Taxonomies</li>
<li>Added Stylesheet</li>
<li>Supporting Grid Style</li>
<li>Pagination for Post Listings</li>
</ol>
Any suggestion highly appreciable.

Extended Featured Widget

Extended Featured Content Widget is a powerful, light weight wordpress plugin that helps you can organize your post/page content beautifully.

NS Featured Posts vs Extended Featured Widget