Mohit Chawla

This plugin adds the ability for the user to mark a post to be a featured post with just one click without the need of editing an individual post. The plugin also includes a widget which can display all the posts which have been marked featured.
<h4>Usage</h4>
<ul>
<li>Go to your admin dashboard page.</li>
<li>Open all posts page which displays the list of posts in table.</li>
<li>A column name ‘Featured posts’ will be there with a star icon in each row.</li>
<li>Click the star to make that post as featured.</li>
</ul>
Dashboard->Posts>All Posts
<h4>Instructions</h4>
Q1. How to display feature posts?
Plugin comes with a widget, which can be added to sidebar
Q2. How to display featured posts in any desired section of theme(Developers)?
In order to display featured posts in your theme, use the following code to fetch the posts.
<pre><code>$featured_posts = Thfp_public::thfp_get_featured_posts();
</code></pre>
The above code return WP_Query object which you can use in a loop. Above static function accepts a parameter(int) which limits the number of posts which it can return.
Show the posts with the help of custom loop:-
<pre><code>if($featured_posts->have_posts()):
 while($featured_posts->have_posts()): $featured_posts->the_post();
 //Your code here
 endwhile;
endif;
</code></pre>
You can also use your own wp_query. Make sure you use ‘tag’ key to be ‘featured’.
<pre><code>$args = array(
 'post_status' => 'publish',
 'tag' => 'featured',
 //Use any other needed args
);
$featured_posts = new WP_Query($args);
</code></pre>
and then use the loop to display posts.

Tidyhive Featured Posts

Set featured posts with single click, no page refresh from admin panel.

maltpress

This plugin creates a widget which loops up to ten recent posts and cycles through them with your selected jQuery Cycle effect.
<h3>Settings</h3>
You can change the following settings:
<ul>
<li>Title: Widget title</li>
<li>Category: Category to draw posts from – the list is automatically populated. Make sure the category you want to use exists before you start! You can select any number of categories – use ctrl and/or shift to select more than one</li>
<li>Number of posts: Number of posts used – if there are fewer posts, that’s fine. It’ll just use the ones in your chosen category</li>
<li>Slider effect: jQuery Cycle effect to be used. To see a preview of all effects, check out <a href="http://jquery.malsup.com/cycle/browser.html" title="jQuery Cycle Effects Browser" rel="nofollow ugc">jQuery Cycle Effects Browser</a></li>
<li>Timeout: the amount of time each slide will show for, in milliseconds. For example 3000 = 3 seconds</li>
<li>Transition speed: how long it takes for each transition, again in milliseconds. For example, if you set this to 1000 it will take one second for a post to fade out and the next to fade in</li>
<li>Width: Add a width here if needed. By default, the widget should fit the sidebar you drop it in to. If not, you can override this by setting a width in pixels (don’t include the units, just the number)</li>
<li>Height: Set the height of the widget in pixels. Don’t include the units.</li>
</ul>
Add images to posts as follows:
<ul>
<li>Edit the post to add the image to</li>
<li>Add a custom field called “slider”</li>
<li>Use the path to an image for the custom field value. This can be one in your media library or use an absolute path from another site if you have permission to do so.</li>
<li>That’s very important – image leeching is naughty.</li>
<li>Update your post.</li>
</ul>

Scrollarama

Creates a loop of recent posts (up to 10) with images, within selected category, and scrolls through with jQuery effects

Tidyhive Featured Posts vs Scrollarama