Flexible Posts Widget

Contributors: dpe415
Donate link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=DJKSKHJWYAWDU
Tags: widget, widgets, posts, categories, tags, recent posts, thumbnails, custom post types, custom taxonomies, feature image
Requires at least: 3.2
Tested up to: 3.9
Stable tag: 3.3 License: GPL2 or later
License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

An advanced posts display widget with many options. Display posts in your sidebars any way you’d like!

Description

The default Recent Posts widget is exceptionally basic. I always find myself in need of a way to easily display a selection of posts from any combination post type or taxonomy. Hence, Flexible Post Widget.

Flexible Posts Widget (FPW) is more than just a simple alternative to the default Recent Posts widget. With many per-instance options it is highly customizable and allows advanced users to display the resulting posts virtually any way imaginable.

Features & options

Customizable widget title
Get posts by post type(s) and/or taxonomy & term(s) or directly by a list of post IDs.
Control the number of posts displayed and the number of posts to offset.
Option to display the post feature image.
Select the post feature image size to display from existing image sizes: thumbnail, medium, large, post-thumbnail or any size defined by the current theme.
Order posts by: date, ID, title, menu order, random, Post ID Order; and sort posts: ascending or descending.
Each widget’s output can be customized by user-defined templates added to the current theme folder.

Supported Languages

English
Italian
Polish
Russian
Spanish

Installation

Upload the flexible-posts-widget folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
Go to ‘Appearance’ > ‘Widgets’ and place the widget into a sidebar to configure it.

To use a custom HTML output template

Create a folder called flexible-posts-widget in the root of your theme folder.
Copy widget.php from within the plugin’s views folder into your theme’s new flexible-posts-widget folder.
Optional: Rename your theme’s widget.php template file to a name of your choice (to use different templates for each widget instance).
Go to ‘Appearance’ > ‘Widgets’ in WordPress to configure an instance of the widget.
In the ‘Template Filename’ field enter the name of the template file you added to your theme. Example: my-themes-widget.php

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the “Comma-separated list of post IDs” work?

The third option (tab) available for getting posts is directly with a list of post IDs. If there is a value in this field, any settings in the “Post Type” or “Taxonomy & Term” tabs will be ignored and all public post types will be queried for the specific post IDs provided. All the other widget options (Display, Thumbnails and Template settings) will still be applied.

How do I find a post’s ID?

Per a WordPress support thread:

Go to Posts in your WordPress admin, and click the post you need the ID of. Then, if you look in the address bar of your browser, you’ll see something like this:

http://example.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1280&action=edit

The number, in this case 1280, is the post ID.

How can I display custom fields (custom meta values) with FPW?

You’ll want to create a custom HTML template by following the instructions and then you can use the standard WordPress Custom Field functions the same way you would if you were editing your theme’s other template files.

A simple code example for a custom field named “test_field” might look like the following: $test_field_value = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'test_field', true ); echo $test_field_value;

How can I style the images, titles or other widget output a certain way?

FPW intentionally does NOT add any styling of it’s own. To adjust the font size, color, alignment, image size, etc. of any output from this widget, you’ll need to edit your theme’s styles.

Does this plugin/widget insert any styles or scripts into my site?

FPW does not add styles or scripts to your public theme. The plugin is intentionally designed to work within your existing theme. FPW does add one stylesheet and one JavaScript to the Widgets page in wp-admin to help with the administration of any FPWs in use.

Want to add support for another language?

I’d love to support more languages. The plugin’s POT file is available with the download. Feel free to post PO & MO files for your language to a new forum thread and I’ll get them added to the plugin.

Questions, Support & Bug Reports

To get answers to your questions, request help or submit a bug report, please start a new forum thread.

Upgrade Notice

When upgrading from one major version to another (version 1.x to version 2.x to version 3.x, etc), please remember to verify your settings for any existing widgets. Not all settings combinations will be saved after a major release upgrade.

Other Notes

Upgrading from one major version to another

When upgrading between major releases (version 1.x to version 2.x to version 3.x, etc), please remember to verify your settings for any existing widgets. Not all settings combinations will be saved after a major release upgrade.

Default vs. Custom Templates

FPW comes with a default template for the widget output. If you would like to alter the widget display code, create a new folder called flexible-posts-widget in your template directory and copy over the “views/widget.php” file.

Edit the new file in your theme to your desired HTML layout. Please do not edit the one in the plugin folder as that will cause conflicts when you update the plugin to the latest release.

Future updates & feature requests list

Dynamically populate the “Template Filename” field based on the templates available.
Add shortcode functionality.

Changelog

3.3

Refactored the PHP Class to encapsulate the plugin.
Added the ability to sort posts by “Post ID Order”. Useful when getting posts using the ID tab (post__in). (Props: @cinus89)
Added Russian translation. (Props: @mizhgun)
Tested To bump for WordPress 3.9 support.

3.2.2

Version bump for WordPress 3.8 support

3.2.1

Added Italian language support. (Props: @adriano-esposito)

3.2

Added option to ignore sticky posts.
Added support to get post by post ID directly.
Added Polish language support. (Props: @Invens)
Added a few filters: dpe_fpw_args to filter the query vars before submitting the query and 'dpe_fpw_template_' . [$template_name] to filter the selected template.

3.1.2

Fixed several pesky PHP notices. (Props: @eeb1)

3.1.1

Fixed incorrect use of rtrim in getTemplateHierarchy when getting custom template files. (Props: @mortenf)

3.1

Internationalized and added Spanish language support. (Props: @elarequi)
Added support for Media post types with “image/” mime types to be displayed directly in the default template.

3.0.2

Bug fix: Added a check to make sure both taxonomy & term are set for tax queries.

3.0.1

Bug fix: Not able to get all registered post types & taxonomies until after widget init. Had to reorder some code.
Bug fix: when getting post types for display in widget admin. (Props: @angelfish276)

3.0

Allow widgets to query by post type and/or taxonomy & term instead of just one or the other. (Props: @vernal)
Allow widgets to query by multiple post types and multiple terms within the same taxonomy. (Props: @vernal)
Changed the list of available post types and taxonomies from every possible option to just those that are public.
General UI enhancements for the widget admin.
Some minor code cleanup and security improvements.

2.1.1

Fixed a source order bug in the widget.php template file. (Props: @carstenbach).

2.1

Added offset parameter to display options.

2.0

Upgrade notice: When upgrading from v1.x.x to v2.x, remember to double-check the settings for any existing widgets.
Dynamically populate available terms based on selected taxonomy.
Make the “Get Posts By” section selectable and only show the chosen method: Taxonomy & Term or Post Type.
Miscellaneous admin improvements.

1.0.5

Bug fix: Removed post_status ‘private’ from wp_queries. We don’t want to show private posts in our loops.

1.0.4

Fixed an issue where post thumbnails aren’t displaying.

1.0.3

Fixed PHP notices that showed in the admin when WP_DEBUG is enabled
Added some stub code for future admin JavaScripts (not active yet).
Readme.txt updates

1.0.2

Readme.txt updates

1.0

First public release