Stephanie Leary

This widget will list random posts from a chosen category. You can choose how many posts to display, and whether to show the excerpt or the full content in addition to the post title. You may also link the widget title to the category archive if you like.
<h3>Translations</h3>
Belorussian (be_BY) by <a href="http://fatcow.com" rel="nofollow ugc">FatCow</a>. 
Romanian (ro_RO) by Web Geek Science (<a href="http://webhostinggeeks.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Web 
Hosting Geeks</a>)
If you would like to send me a translation, please write to me through <a href="http://sillybean.net/about/contact/" rel="nofollow ugc">my contact page</a>. Let me know which plugin you’ve translated and how you would like to be credited. I will write you back so you can attach the files in your reply.

Random Posts from Category

A widget that lists random posts from a chosen category.

James Kemp

This plugin allows you to list any number of related posts from the same category as the current post. You can also randomise these results. It is very lightweight, at only 3KB.
There are a number of options available:
<ul>
<li>Choose the number of Posts to show</li>
<li>Choose whether it displays these posts randomly, or in order specified by you.</li>
<li>Choose whether to display a title, what tags to use, and what text should be displayed (e.g. H3)</li>
<li>Choose a class for the main UL</li>
</ul>
To display the random related posts in its simplest form, simply place the following code in your single.php file – <code><?php relatedPosts(); ?></code>.
To edit the options availble, use the following codes:
<pre><code><?php relatedPosts(
 $ppp = 4, 
 $rand = true, 
 $rPinctitle = true, 
 $rPtitletag = 'h3', 
 $rPtitle = 'Related Posts', 
 $rPulclass = 'related_posts',
 $orderby = 'title', 
 $order = 'ASC'
); ?>
</code></pre>
Where:
<ul>
<li>$ppp = Number of posts to display (Any integer allowed)</li>
<li>$rand = sets the display to random (true/false)</li>
<li>$rPinctitle = Displays the title (true/false)</li>
<li>$rPtitletag = The type of tag to wrap the title in (Default h3, but it can be any valid HTML tag)</li>
<li>$rPtitle = The title to be displayed (This can be any text value)</li>
<li>$rPulclass = This sets the class of the ul (This can be any text value)</li>
<li>$rPexcerpt = Displays the post excerpt (true/false)</li>
<li>$orderby = This allows you to order the posts by certain parameters (title/author/date/modified/menu_order/parent/ID/none/comment_count) If you want to choose the order of your posts, be sure to set $rand to false</li>
<li>$order = This can either be Ascending or Descending (ASC/DESC)</li>
</ul>

Random Related Posts Based on Category

This plugin allows you to list any number of related posts from the same category as the current post. You can also randomise these results.

Random Posts from Category vs Random Related Posts Based on Category