Category Posts Widget

The category posts widget lets you place a linked list of posts from the same category in your sidebar or widgetized area. In order to use it, you need to have the pluginWilliams Category Post Widgets” activated.

Examples of use

cat-post-demo-sidebar

The most common use for this widget is to create a menu-like widget in the sidebar that links to posts in a category (1). You can show dates on time-sensitive items, such as news & announcements (2). You can also include thumbnail images, and display a single random post from a category (3).

Creating & editing category posts

In the widget editing interface (Appearance -> Widgets), find the “Category Posts” widget in the available widgets bin on the left, and drag it into one of your sidebars. You can configure the options below.

cat-post-widget-options

  • Title: appears above the category links.
  • Category: this determines what’s listed by the widget. Each list item is a post in the category you select.
  • Number of items: how many posts to show. You can select a number, or select “All”
  • Order items by: by default, posts are listed by date, but you can also order by the post’s title or author, the order the posts were created in (ID), when the post was last modified, how “popular” the post  is (most comments), or randomly.
  • Order direction: ascending or descending. If you select  date + descending,  you’d get a list of posts in reverse chronological order (newest to oldest).
  • Level of detail: you can display just the title, the title and a brief excerpt, or the entire content of the posts.
  • Display date: do you want to display the post’s date? Useful for announcements and time-sensitive posts. By default, a post’s date is the day it was created on, but that can be changed.
  • Show thumbnails: this will display the post’s feature image as a 150×150 thumbnail.
  • More link: do you want to link to all the posts in this category? If so, the link will use the text you provide here. Delete the text in the box to omit the link.
  • Optimize widget display for: this controls formatting – if you choose sidebar, the widget will take up less room (smaller fonts, etc.) than if you choose main content. Select main content if you’re using the widget in your homepage widget area or a widgetized area in a page/post.

Advanced options

If you want even more control over how your post list displays, try the Category Posts – Advanced widget.