Recent Post Views

This plugin requires the WP-PostViews plugin to be installed and setup to work correctly. (https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-postviews/)

This plugin displays a widget in the sidebar with the most recently viewed posts over the last 2 days, the number of times they were viewed, a link to each, and images corresponding to whether they were “hot” posts or not (calculated as a percentage of the most viewed post).

1. Upload recent-post-views.php to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
3. Put the post in the sidebar via the ‘Widgets’ menu, save a title for the widget.
4. Use the shortcode [recentpostviews] in your pages and posts. See FAQ’s for more info. Accepts “cat”, “posts”, and “days” as inputs.

How do I use the shortcode?

The basic format is [recentpostviews], which will by default show a list of the top 7 posts, from all categories, over the last 2 days.
Options are “cat”, “posts” and “days”.
* “cat” is the category ID.
* “posts” is the number of posts you want to display.
* “days” is the number of days back you want the shortcode to query, as in “over the last (n) days.”

Example: [recentpostviews cat=”5″ posts=”10″ days=”3″]
*This would display the 10 most recent posts from category 5 over the last 3 days.

If you’re not getting any results for the shortcode, try changing the number of days.

By default, the “hotlevel” for posts is 75% or .75 in the shortcode. E.g., a post will not show up as “hot” unless it is greater than or equal to the post with the most number of views over the same time frame.

How can I change options, like what is considered a “recent” post?

Just add the widget and select your options.

I have multiple widgets, and some of them have posts that are viewed the same number of times, but one is not a “hot” post. What gives?

Whether a post is hot or not is dependent on the max number of views for any post over the timeframe you have selected. E.g., if you have a widget based on the last 3 days and one based on the last 7, the level for a “hot” post will be different. I’m planning on changing this in a future update, such that the max number of posts for a particular category will be calculated.

The number of views for my posts are not updating, why?

I actually had this issue myself, and discovered that it’s because the postmeta table was not updating the number of views. As a temporary solution, I installed the WP-PostViews plugin (at https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-postviews/) and enabled the option in the settings menu that said to register views from everyone, not just guests. Thanks to GamerZ for a great plugin, and for helping to fix this issue. If you’re having this problem, I suggest that recent-post-views should be used in conjunction with WP-PostViews.

1. 

   As you see from the screenshot, you get a nice sidebar widget with posts titles, links to the post, and a count of the recent number of views.

1.5

• Added settings sub-menu with styling options.
• Fixed list and table code for widgets and shortcode.

1.4

• Added shortcode functionality.
• Minor changes to the table tags in the widget.

1.3

• Prefixed all the variable names and made the paths to image files relative.
• This should be a more stable release, one that can co-exist peacefully with other plugins.

1.2

• Minor bug fix

1.1

• Added option to set threshold percent level for “hot” posts.
• Added option to change html color code for number of views.

1.0

• Adds option to change number of posts and to select specific categories.

0.5

• Adds option to widget to change number of days for recent posts.

0.1

• First release, displays most recent posts views over last 2 days.