Yann at WP&amp;Co

<h4>Quick and simple featured boxes as widgets</h4>
Adds a widget to display a square or rectangular block in the form of an image, title, and subtitle 
pointing to a specific post, page, category or theme.
Nice CSS styling. Recommended for inclusion in “magazine styled” home pages.
Multi-widget is supported, so that numerous articles or categories can be featured in a sidebar or home page template.
You can use the provided additional stylesheet, or customize your own.
Base package includes .pot file for translation of the interface, and English and French versions.
<h4>Translation</h4>
If you want to contribute to a translation of this plugin, please drop me a line by e-mail or leave a comment 
on the <a href="http://www.yann.com/en/wp-plugins/yd-featured-block-widget" title="Yann Dubois' Featured Box Widget for WordPress" rel="nofollow ugc">plugin’s page</a>. 
You will get credit for your translation in the plugin file and this documentation, as well as a link on this page and on my developers’ blog.
<h4>Active support</h4>
Drop me a line on my <a href="http://www.yann.com/en/wp-plugins/yd-featured-block-widget" title="Yann Dubois' Featured Block Widget for WordPress" rel="nofollow ugc">YD Recent Posts Widget plugin support site</a> to report bugs, ask for specific feature or improvement, or just tell me how you’re using the plugin. 
It’s still in an active development stage, with new features coming out on a regular basis.
<h3>Revisions</h3>
<ul>
<li>0.1.0. Initial beta release of 2010/10/14</li>
<li>0.1.1. Minor bug fixes, framework update 2010/10/25</li>
<li>0.1.2. Minor bug fixes, framework update 2010/10/25</li>
<li>0.1.3. Minor bug fixes, framework update 2010/10/26</li>
</ul>
<h3>Did you like it?</h3>
Drop me a line on http://www.yann.com/en/wp-plugins/yd-featured-block-widget
And… please rate this plugin –>

YD Featured Box Widget

Quick and simple featured boxes as widgets

linkhousemedia

This plugin was initially designed as a theme function but we thought it might come in handy for someone else. It is designed to use the following plugins:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-post-type-ui/" rel="ugc">Custom Post Type UI</a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/taxonomy-images/" rel="ugc">Taxonomy Images</a></li>
</ul>
Of course you can create your own custom post types and taxonomies but the Custom Post Type UI plugin makes very light work of it.
The plugin creates a widget for adding featured posts. There are other plugins that do this but Featured Custom Posts allows for custom post types and taxonomies. It was created to show featured products that were created as custom post types.
Features
<ul>
<li>Select number of posts to display (default: 10)</li>
<li>Post Type</li>
<li>Custom Taxonomy</li>
<li>Custom Taxonomy Term</li>
</ul>
New In Version 1.1
<ul>
<li>Added Permalink Base for post URL (Defaults to post’s GUID)</li>
<li>Added Post Title as the link text if Taxonomy Images plugin isn’t present</li>
</ul>
Example Usage
Custom Post Type: “products” 
Taxonomy: “product-tags” 
Taxonomy Term: “featured”
In this example our custom post type of “products” allows us to add products in a similar way to posts. Now with our custom taxonomy of “product-tags” we can tag our products with the tag “featured”. Plug this information into the widget via the wp-admin area and you’re all set!
Future Updates
<ul>
<li>Allow for multiple taxonomy terms</li>
<li>Add thumbnail size support</li>
</ul>

Featured Custom Posts Widget

Widget that allows custom post types and taxonomies to be displayed.  Works well with Custom Post Type UI and Taxonomy Images plugins.

YD Featured Box Widget vs Featured Custom Posts Widget