The Plugin
Next to the Category Column that we really needed and still use here and the Advanced Category Column that would better be called „enhanced“ and just is a version with more functionality of Category Column, now there is a fifth in the family: The Featured Category Widget.
Just like the Featured Post Widget, which is still in use here as well, and all it’s derivates it can put certain posts in the focus. But instead of choosing a post you choose a category from which the post should come. If you don’t want to use the post excerpt, you can use either the first sentences of the post or just a couple of words.
Then you can choose the number of posts to display and the offset (number of posts that don’t show in the beginning of the loop), ready.
As with all our plugins, we try to write them ‚afap‘ (as foolproof as possible). Should you still discover some mistakes or have some issues, just leave a comment.
Current Version
The current Version of the Featured Category Widget is 1.7.
Changelog
1.7 streamlined code and loads of new features added (alignment of thumbnails, possibility to show the date and more)
1.6 adjustments in the framework and some more customizing was asked
1.5 You can link the widget title to the displayed category now
1.4 Possibility to change the width of the thumbnail added; small bug fixed
1.3 Small bugfix in auto excerpt
1.2 Complete code overhaul;hooks into the Ads Easy Plugin if Google AdSense Tags are in use
1.1 Possibility to choose random posts
1.0 Initial release
Installation
Simply download the plugin here, unzip it and upload the folder ‚category-feature-widget‘ to the plugins-folder of your WP installation. Then activate the Featured Category Widget and start using it.
Screenshots
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I love this. I would like the category title linked to the posts page for that category. I’m not very good at coding. Is there an easy fix for this?
Yes, there is a very easy way to fix it. Just upgrade to version 1.5 of the plugin.
It should be available quiet soon at wordpress.org
Hi
Any help will be much appreciated. I love the plugin and have installed it on a clients site. She uses the Sociable plugin and your plugin picks up those images as well as the featured post image. You can see exactly what I mean here (I’ve removed the http as I’m not looking for a free backlink!):
//eatingplansforweightloss.info/jans-weight-loss-blog/how-we-sabotage-our-diets/
If you scroll to the bottom of the post you’ll see the widget in the footer area (used twice)
Any help you can give me – ideas how I can stop the Social buttons showing will be really good. Client doesn’t want to disable the other plugin which is understandable
Thanks
Hi Mark,
At first sight, I think the problem is in the use of the WP-hooks of the sociable plugin. The post excerpt is given with the excerpt filters applied. Most probably, the sociable plugin uses that filter to get it’s stuff behind each post even when only the excerpt is shown.
The post excerpt cannot be returned without applying the filters because that would break a lot of other plugins. I will have to investigate and come back to you.
Regards,
Stefan
Ok, it is the excerpt filter hook. Just open the file ‚CF_WidgetClass.php‘ and change line 359 from
'filter' => trueto'filter' => falseand your problem is solved.You will have to change it again after every update though.
Regards,
Stefan
Hi,
is there a way to display each post’s date below the title with the Featured Category Widget
Hi,
at the moment, there is no way. But I can give it a go next month and possibly build in a feature like that.
Hi, I started using your plugin and it worked fine for about an hour or so. However, thereafter it started giving problem of showing my admin as blank page. So I had to deactivate it through cpanel. Could you kindly look into this aspect. Else your plugin is superb, the one I wanted. Thanks and hope to hear from you at the earliest.
Hi advppc,
I investigated the whole thing now in some testing environments and unfortunately, I cannot reproduce the error you are encountering. I cannot help you.
Sorry
Hi
Great plugin! Is there a way to left align the thumbnail and wrap the excerpt text?
Thank you!!
Hi Cara,
at the moment that possibility doesn’t exist. But I could do something about it in the next update.
Regards,
Stefan
Hello again Cara,
the next version of the plugin is almost there and you can now align the thumbnail left or right of the text. The textwrap will be according to the browsers ability to deal with CSS3 ‚hyphen‘.
Regards,
Stefan
Hi there,
Love the plugin, nice & easy to use.
I upgraded to your latest version and now my thumbnails won’t adjust the way they used to. I changed the width again, and refreshed, but no luck. Can I get a copy of previouss version please?
Cheers ;)
Hello Magda,
thanks for the apreciation. Unfortunately, it seems that with the last update I made some changes for a couple of people that I cannot reproduce in my testing environment. All works still fine with me, so I released it to the wild.
First of all, a cache refresh in your browser might do the trick. And if that doesn’t help, here is the old version: http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/category-feature.1.6.zip
Best,
Stefan