Recent Posts Widget Extended

Description

This plugin will enable a custom, flexible and super advanced recent posts, you can display it via shortcode or widget. Allows you to display a list of the most recent posts with thumbnail, excerpt and post date, also you can display it from all or specific or multiple taxonomy, post type and much more!

Features Include

  • Taxonomy support!
  • Post status option.
  • Custom html or text before and/or after recent posts.
  • Available filter for dev.
  • Shortcode feature.
  • Better image cropping.
  • Allow you to set title url.
  • Display by date, comment count or random.
  • Display thumbnails, with customizable size and alignment.
  • Display excerpt, with customizable length.
  • Display from all, specific or multiple category.
  • Display from all, specific or multiple tag.
  • Display post date.
  • Display modification date
  • Display comment count
  • Exclude current post
  • Read more option.
  • Post type option.
  • Custom CSS.
  • Multiple widgets.

Support this project

Shorcode Explanation

Explanation of shortcode options:

Basic shortcode

[rpwe]

Display 10 recent posts

[rpwe limit="10"]

Display 10 recent posts with thumbnail

[rpwe limit="10" thumb="true"]

Here’s the full default shortcode arguments

limit="5"
offset=""
order="DESC"
orderby="date"
post_type="post"
cat=""
tag=""
taxonomy=""
post_type="post"
post_status="publish"
ignore_sticky="1"
taxonomy=""
excerpt="false"
length="10"
thumb="true"
thumb_height="45"
thumb_width="45"
thumb_default="http://placehold.it/45x45/f0f0f0/ccc"
thumb_align="rpwe-alignleft"
date="true"
readmore="false"
readmore_text="Read More »"
styles_default="true"
cssID=""
before=""
after=""

Screenshots

  • The widget settings

Installation

Through Dashboard

  1. Log in to your WordPress admin panel and go to Plugins -> Add New
  2. Type recent posts widget extended in the search box and click on search button.
  3. Find Recent Posts Widget Extended plugin.
  4. Then click on Install Now after that activate the plugin.
  5. Go to the widgets page Appearance -> Widgets.
  6. Find Recent Posts Extended widget.

Installing Via FTP

  1. Download the plugin to your hardisk.
  2. Unzip.
  3. Upload the recent-posts-widget-extended folder into your plugins directory.
  4. Log in to your WordPress admin panel and click the Plugins menu.
  5. Then activate the plugin.
  6. Go to the widgets page Appearance -> Widgets.
  7. Find Recent Posts Extended widget.

FAQ

How to filter the post query?

You can use rpwe_default_query_arguments to filter it. Example:

add_filter( 'rpwe_default_query_arguments', 'your_custom_function' );
function your_custom_function( $args ) {
    $args['posts_per_page'] = 10; // Changing the number of posts to show.
    return $args;
}

How to filter the post excerpt?

Post excerpt now comes with filter to easily dev to change/customize it. apply_filters( 'rpwe_excerpt', get_the_excerpt() )

Ordering not working!

Did you installed any Post or Post Type Order? Please try to deactivate it and try again the ordering. (related question)

No image options

Your theme needs to support Post Thumbnail, please go to https://codex.wordpress.org/Post_Thumbnails to read more info and how to activate it in your theme.

How to add custom style?

First, please uncheck the Use Default Style option then place the css code below in the Custom CSS box, then you can customize it to fit your needs

.rpwe-block ul {
    list-style: none !important;
    margin-left: 0 !important;
    padding-left: 0 !important;
}
.rpwe-block li {
    border-bottom: 1px solid #eee;
    margin-bottom: 10px;
    padding-bottom: 10px;
    list-style-type: none;
}
.rpwe-block a {
    display: inline !important;
    text-decoration: none;
}
.rpwe-block h3 {
    background: none !important;
    clear: none;
    margin-bottom: 0 !important;
    margin-top: 0 !important;
    font-weight: 400;
    font-size: 12px !important;
    line-height: 1.5em;
}
.rpwe-thumb {
    border: 1px solid #eee !important;
    box-shadow: none !important;
    margin: 2px 10px 2px 0;
    padding: 3px !important;
}
.rpwe-summary {
    font-size: 12px;
}
.rpwe-time {
    color: #bbb;
    font-size: 11px;
}
.rpwe-alignleft {
    display: inline;
    float: left;
}
.rpwe-alignright {
    display: inline;
    float: right;
}
.rpwe-aligncenter {
    display: block;
    margin-left: auto;
    margin-right: auto;
}
.rpwe-clearfix:before,.rpwe-clearfix:after {
    content: "";
    display: table !important;
}
.rpwe-clearfix:after {
    clear: both;
}
.rpwe-clearfix {
    zoom: 1;
}

Why so many !important in the css code?

I know it’s not good but I have a good reason, the !important is to make sure the built-in style compatible with all themes. But if you don’t like it, you can turn of the Use Default Styles and remove all custom css code in the Custom CSS box then create your own style.

Available filters

Default arguments

rpwe_default_args

Post excerpt

rpwe_excerpt

Post markup

rpwe_markup

Post query arguments

rpwe_default_query_arguments

Reviews

April 17, 2021
This is a very useful plugin that works really well and has lots of filters to customize as needed. Thanks!!
July 27, 2020
Nice plugin, but you need to change the markup. This is very incorrect markup when there is a heading (<h3>) inside the link (<a>). use <span> inside <li> or some other tags. Due to erroneous markup, I cannot use this plugin on many sites/
March 23, 2020
I had complained that several widget setting had no effect. I had "display thumbnail" unchecked, yet thumbnails were displayed I had "display date" unchecked, yet the dates were displayed I've noticed the same problem with an similar widget I tried in place of this one. There could be an incompatibility with my theme or another plugin. Changed from 1 to 4 stars since I can no longer assume the problem is with this plugin alone, and anything less than 4 stars would be unfair.
February 19, 2020
Plugin does not work with latest version of WP 5.3.2 The text editor can not be used with this plugin activated. Great plugin - hopefully gets fixed.
Read all 154 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Recent Posts Widget Extended” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“Recent Posts Widget Extended” has been translated into 14 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Recent Posts Widget Extended” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.0.0 – Feb 17, 2021

  • This is just a maintenance update after a couple years with no update. Thank you for still using this plugin 🥳