This plugin gives the look of a magazine-style website with thumbnails and excerpts in a clean layout. Thumbnails are generated automatically, and there is a settings page to set an unholy amount of options. (Really, it’s out of control and I’m sorry.) The latest release also has a “featured post” add-on so you can specify any post you want or just the most recent one to be put in the featured post box. You can also add a css popup for the image that includes the post title and 
Are you using Thesis from DIYThemes.com? Easily place your Recent Visual Posts by simply inserting your desired Thesis hook on the settings page. No code changes needed.
This plugin uses a slightly modified version of the excellent Image Extractor plugin found at <a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/image-extractor/" rel="ugc">wordpress.org/extend/plugins/image-extractor/</a>.
<h3>I need more help!</h3>
Make sure you check out the <a href="http://oktober5.com/visual-recent-posts-plugin/" rel="nofollow ugc">plugin homepage</a>. If you need my help, check out the <a href="http://oktober5.com/forums/" rel="nofollow ugc">plugin forums</a>

Visual Recent Posts

Displays your recent posts with auto-generated thumbnails and excerpts; also includes a featured post and popup box option.

chinmoy29

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.

Visual Recent Posts vs Extended Featured Widget