The Random Featured Post plugin allows you to display a random post from a designated category. Ideally this should 
draw readers landing on your homepage to some of your best posts. The featured post will display the title 
“Featured Post” (customizable) along with the post’s title, an excerpt and a link to continue to the full post.
<h3>Additional Notes</h3>
<ul>
<li>The show_featured_post($PreFeature = ”, $PostFeature = ”, $AlwaysShow = false, $categoryID = 0, $NumberOfPosts = 0) function has five optional arguments. 
The first two are for any HTML you would like to display before and after the featured post. The third argument is a 
boolean (true/false) argument which will override the \’Show Featured Post\’ option and always display the featured post when true. The fourth option allows you to 
specify a single category to display from, overriding the selections in settings page. The fifth option allows you to show more than one post at a time, overriding 
the settings page option.</li>
<li>All output is contained in a DIV class named “featuredpost” and can be adjusted via your stylesheet.</li>
</ul>

Random Featured Post

The Random Featured Post plugin allows you to display a random post from a designated category as a "featured" post.

Kyle Phillips

Why Favorites?
Favorites is designed for end users and theme developers. It provides an easy-to-use API for adding favorite button functionality to any post type.
The plugin can provide a way to save favorites, likes, bookmarks, or any other similar types of data with its customizable button text.
Visit <a href="http://favoriteposts.com" rel="nofollow ugc">favoriteposts.com</a> for a full list of available template functions and shortcodes.
Features
Use with Any Post Type – Enable or disable favorite functionality per post type while automatically adding a favorite button before and/or after the content. Or, use the included functions to display the button anywhere in your template.
Available for All Users – Don’t want to hide functionality behind a login? Favorites includes an option to save anonymous users’ favorites by either Session or Cookie. Logged-In users’ favorites are also saved as user meta
Designed for Developers – Favorites works great out-of-the-box for beginners, but a full set of template functions unlocks just about any sort of custom functionality developers may need. Favorites outputs the minimum amount of markup needed, putting the style and control in your hands.
GDPR
As of version 2.2, a setting is provided to help comply with GDPR standards. To enable this setting, visit Settings > Favorites > Users, and check the field under “User Cookie Consent.” When this setting is enabled, the content saved under the setting displays in a modal window, and the user must agree to the terms you provide before favorite cookies can be saved. Note: There is no language provided by default. This should be supplied by a qualified attorney or legal entity. Once the user has approved or denied cookies, that is saved in the “simplefavorites” cookie along with the timestamp of approval or denial. If the site is part of a multi-site installation, the setting will carry through to all sites.
If your site already has a cookie compliance solution in place, there are two document-level jQuery events that may be triggered in order to approve or deny cookies in the background.
To approve the use of cookies, trigger the event “favorites-user-consent-approved”. To deny the use of cookies, trigger the event “favorites-user-consent-denied”.
Multisite Compatible – As of version 1.1.0, Favorites is multisite compatible. User favorites are saved on a site/blog basis, and may be retrieved and displayed across sites.
For more information visit <a href="http://favoriteposts.com" rel="nofollow ugc">favoriteposts.com</a>.
Important: Favorites requires WordPress version 3.8 or higher, and PHP version 5.4 or higher.
<h3>Usage</h3>
Favorite Button
The favorite button can be added automatically to the content by enabling specific post types in the plugin settings. It may also be added to template files or through the content editor using the included functions or shortcodes. The post id may be left blank in all cases if inside the loop. The site id parameter is optional, for use in multisite installations (defaults to current site).
<ul>
<li>Get function: <code>get_favorites_button($post_id, $site_id)</code></li>
<li>Print function: <code>the_favorites_button($post_id, $site_id)</code></li>
<li>Shortcode: <code>[favorite_button post_id="" site_id=""]</code></li>
</ul>
Favorite Count (by Post)
Total favorites for each post are saved as a simple integer. If a user unfavorites a post, this count is updated. Anonymous users’ favorites count towards the total by default, but may be disabled via the plugin settings. The post id may be left blank in all cases if inside the loop.
<ul>
<li>Get function: <code>get_favorites_count($post_id)</code></li>
<li>Print function: <code>the_favorites_count($post_id)</code></li>
<li>Shortcode: <code>[favorite_count post_id=""]</code></li>
</ul>
Favorite Count (by User) 
Displays the total number of favorites a user has favorited. Template functions accept the same filters parameter as the user favorites functions.
<ul>
<li>Get function: <code>get_user_favorites_count($user_id, $site_id, $filters)</code></li>
<li>Print function: <code>the_user_favorites_count($user_id, $site_id, $filters)</code></li>
<li>Shortcode: <code>[user_favorites user_id="" site_id="" post_types=""]</code></li>
</ul>
User Favorites
User favorites are stored as an array of post ids. Logged-in users’ favorites are stored as a custom user meta field, while anonymous users’ favorites are stored in either the session or browser cookie (configurable in the plugin settings). If the user id parameter is omitted, the favorites default to the current user. The site id parameter is optional, for use in multisite installations (defaults to current site).
<ul>
<li>Get function (returns array of IDs): <code>get_user_favorites($user_id, $site_id)</code></li>
<li>Get function (returns html list): <code>get_user_favorites_list($user_id, $site_id, $include_links, $filters, $include_button, $include_thumbnails = false, $thumbnail_size = 'thumbnail', $include_excerpt = false)</code></li>
<li>Print function (prints an html list): <code>the_user_favorites_list($user_id, $site_id, $include_links, $filters, $include_button, $include_thumbnails = false, $thumbnail_size = 'thumbnail', $include_excerpt = false)</code></li>
<li>Shortcode (prints an html list, with the option of omitting links): `[user_favorites user_id=”” include_links=”true” site_id=”” include_buttons=”false” post_types=”post” include_thumbnails=”false” thumbnail_size=”thumbnail” include_excerpt=”false”]</li>
</ul>
List Users Who Have Favorited a Post
Display a list of users who have favorited a specific post. If the user id parameter is omitted, the favorites default to the current user. The site id parameter is optional, for use in multisite installations (defaults to current site). The get function returns an array of user objects.
<ul>
<li>Get function (returns array of User Objects): <code>get_users_who_favorited_post($post_id, $site_id)</code></li>
<li>Print function (prints an html list): <code>the_users_who_favorited_post($post_id = null, $site_id = null, $separator = 'list', $include_anonymous = true, $anonymous_label = 'Anonymous Users', $anonymous_label_single = 'Anonymous User')</code></li>
<li>Shortcode (prints an html list): `[post_favorites post_id=”” site_id=”” separator=”list” include_anonymous=”true” anonymous_label=”Anonymous Users” anonymous_label_single=”Anonymous User”]</li>
</ul>
Clear Favorites Button
Displays a button that allows users to clear all of their favorites.
<ul>
<li>Get function: <code>get_clear_favorites_button($site_id, $text)</code></li>
<li>Print function: <code>the_clear_favorites_button($site_id, $text)</code></li>
<li>Shortcode: `[clear_favorites_button site_id=”” text=”Clear Favorites”]</li>
</ul>
Favorite Count (Across all Posts) 
Displays the total number of favorites for a given site.
<ul>
<li>Get function: <code>get_total_favorites_count($site_id)</code></li>
<li>Print function: <code>the_total_favorites_count($site_id)</code></li>
</ul>

Favorites

I like the Plugin Favorites very much. It just works great! The nicest feature is that I can also customise the favourites list. Thank you!

Perfect

Works really well thanks for the great plugin!

The only thing its missing is a way to add the Post ID in the results.

This would be so useful for utilising this to pull in more advanced information easily when using other plugins with conditionals etc.

Thanks

Brilliant plugin

Favorites for any post type. Easily add favoriting/liking, wishlists, or any other similar functionality using the developer-friendly API.

Random Featured Post vs Favorites