Taylor Dewey

This is a very simple plugin that mimics the effect of the “recent posts” widget included with WordPress, but with the addition of a content preview. The plugin will, by default, display the name of the post (with a link) and a short bit of text from the post.
The number of characters to truncate is controllable in the widget panel.
<h3>Limitations</h3>
<ul>
<li>The plugin strips out any HTML tags from the post before displaying it, so if you are looking to display images — this isn’t your plugin.</li>
</ul>

TDD Recent Posts

Simple widget that displays the recent posts with a short content preview. Control the length of the content preview and number of posts

Paul Annekov

<h4>Looking for maintainer. Write me to paul.annekov@gmail.com</h4>
Flexible Recent Posts (FRP) plugin gives you possibility to add widget to your blog with recent posts using user-defined template.
The main features are:
<ul>
<li>Template for each post in widget. You can write your HTML-template or overwrite default in widget form.</li>
<li>Shortcodes support in template. You can use built-in shortcodes to insert info related to current post in widget: <code>title</code>, <code>featured image</code>, <code>excerpt</code>, <code>date</code>, <code>permalink</code>, <code>author</code>, <code>comments</code>.</li>
<li>Restrict terms from which you want to display posts. Display posts from all terms or from selected only.</li>
<li>Number of posts to display. Set number of latest posts that will be displayed in widget.</li>
<li>All posts links. Select option to display link near the title or/and after all posts that will open selected posts category page. Set link title or custom link URL.</li>
</ul>
Useful links:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/flexible-recent-posts/other_notes/" rel="ugc">Template shortcodes</a></li>
<li><a href="http://frp.idea.informer.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Feature requests</a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/tags/flexible-recent-posts?forum_id=10#postform" rel="ugc">Bugs</a></li>
<li><a href="https://flattr.com/thing/646464" rel="nofollow ugc">Donate (Flattr)</a></li>
</ul>
Translators:
<ul>
<li>Russian (ru) – <a href="http://www.steelrat.info/en/" rel="nofollow ugc">Paul Annekov</a></li>
</ul>
Licenses
<ul>
<li>Uses <a href="http://www.fatcow.com/free-icons" rel="nofollow ugc">FatCow Icon Set</a> licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/" rel="nofollow ugc">Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Shortcodes</h3>
Plugin template system supports 5 shortcodes related to current widget post, that you can use in your template:
Title [frp_title]
Displays post title.
Example: <code><h4>[frp_title]</h4></code>
Excerpt [frp_excerpt length=””]
Displays post excerpt using <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_the_excerpt" title="Visit function reference page" rel="nofollow ugc">get_the_excerpt</a> function. 
You can specify excerpt length using <code>length</code> attribute. If not specified – default WordPress excerpt length used.
Example: <code><div class="excerpt">[frp_excerpt]</div></code>, <code>[frp_excerpt length="15"]</code>
Date [frp_date format=”F j, Y” time_since=”0″]
Displays post date. You can add <code>format</code> shortcode parameter to change date format. Read about format value <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Formatting_Date_and_Time" title="Visit customizing time and date reference page" rel="nofollow ugc">here</a>. 
Add <code>time_since</code> parameter with 1 as value to display amount of elapsed time: <code>30 seconds ago</code>, <code>5 minutes ago</code>, <code>12 hours ago</code>, <code>3 Jun</code>.
Example: <code><div class="date">[frp_date format="Y/m/d g:i:s A"]</div></code>, <code><div class="elapsed">[frp_date time_since="1"]</div></code>
Link [frp_link]
Displays post permalink.
Example: <code><a href="[frp_link]">read more</a></code>
Featured image [frp_thumbnail size=”32×32″]
Displays featured post image. Add <code>size</code> shortcode parameter to change image size. You can define size using WIDTHxHEIGHT as value or size name (built-in or defined in theme).
Examples: <code>[frp_thumbnail]</code>, <code>[frp_thumbnail size="thumbnail"]</code>, <code>[frp_thumbnail size="128x128"]</code>, <code>[frp_thumbnail size="full"]</code>
Author [frp_author link=”1″]
Displays name of the post’s author. Set <code>link</code> parameter to 0 if you want to disable link (author’s site) from author name.
Examples: <code>[frp_author]</code>, <code>[frp_author link="1"]</code>, <code>[frp_author link="0"]</code>
Comments [frp_comments no_text=”1″]
Displays the number of comments. Set <code>no_text</code> parameter to 1 if you want to disable comment text (just “23” instead of “23 Comments”).
Examples: <code>[frp_comments]</code>, <code>[frp_comments no_text="1"]</code>, <code>[frp_comments no_text="0"]</code>

Flexible Recent Posts

Displays recent posts using flexible template system. Define template for each post entry, set needed taxonomy and much more.

TDD Recent Posts vs Flexible Recent Posts