BNS Featured Category

Plugin with multi-widget functionality that displays most recent posts from specific category or categories (set with user options). Also includes user options to display: Category Description; Author and meta details; comment totals; post categories; post tags; and either full post, excerpt, or your choice of the amount of words (or any combination).

Download

Latest version: Download BNS Featured Category v1.7.2 [zip]

Installation

This section describes how to install the plugin and get it working.

Upload bns-featured-category.php to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
Activate through the ‘Plugins’ menu.
Place the BNS Featured Category widget appropriately in the Appearance | Widgets section of the dashboard.
Set options to personal preferences:

* Widget Title
* Categories – separated by commas
* Show (first) Category Description (checkbox)
* Show Author and date/time details of post (checkbox)
* Show all categories attached to post (checkbox)
* Show all tags attached to post (checkbox)
* Show post in full or use default of post excerpt (checkbox)

– or -

Go to ‘Plugins’ menu under your Dashboard
Click on the ‘Add New’ link
Search for bns-featured-category
Install.
Activate through the ‘Plugins’ menu.
Place the BNS Featured Category widget appropriately in the Appearance | Widgets section of the dashboard.
Set options to personal preferences:

Reading this article for further assistance: http://wpfirstaid.com/2009/12/plugin-installation/

FAQ

Q. Can I use this in more than one widget area?
A. Yes, this plugin has been made for multi-widget compatibility. Each instance of the widget will display, if wanted, differently than every other instance of the widget.

Q. How can I style the plugin output?
A. The plugin uses several “common” WordPress functions that create standard class and id elements that can be styled in the style.css file
* the classes generated by the post_class() function; and, the id generated by “post-” apended to the_ID() function wrap the general post output
* the plugin class post-details wraps the general meta details of the post, such as the Author, Categories, Tags, etc.
* the overall plugin may also be wrapped in a widget “container” class, or id, specific to the theme itself such as (but not limited to): widget, sidebar, left, right, etc.

With the addition of the display Category Description option an additional class was written into the plugin. To style the category description displayed add the class ‘bnsfc-cat-desc’ to your style.css file then use your choice of properties to style the text, for example:

.bnsfc-cat-desc {font-style: italic;}

Q. Can I increase the maximum posts to display?
A. As of version 1.6.2 the Total Posts to Display is independent of the “posts per page” setting as set under Settings | Reading.

Changelog

1.7.2

released: 29 Aug 2010
compatibility check for WordPress 3.0.1
no other modifications

1.7.1

released: July 5, 2010
cleaned up code to meet WP Standards
added wp_reset_query();

1.7

compatible with WordPress version 3.0
updated license declaration

1.6.3

removed the_ID() function as redundant
added category related span around widget title

1.6.2.3

compatible with WordPress version 2.9.2
updated license declaration

1.6.2.2

clarified the plugin’s release under a GPL license

1.6.2.1

compatibility check for 2.9.1 completed

1.6.2

Total Posts to Display can now exceed the posts_per_page option value.

1.6.1

Minor correction to variable structure to allow for multiple instances of the plugin with independent post counts

1.6

added option to display the description for the (first) category choice as taken directly from the Categories panel under Posts in the Dashboard
wrapped Category Description in its own class: ‘bnsfc-cat-desc’
corrected issue with checkboxes not displaying their state correctly
Updated the screenshot to show the most recent version of the options panel

1.5.1

modified excerpt function name to make more unique to plugin

1.5

added option to set the quantity of the first words of the post to display instead of the default excerpt.
modified description to reflect new functionality
slightly increased the size of option panel to better display controls

1.4

added version control compared against $wp_version
added horizontal rule to option panel for clarity

1.3

code cleanup and error trapping
added dynamic reference of maximum posts based on blog Settings | Reading “posts per page”

1.2

code clean up
changed the_content(__(‘Read more …’)) to the_content() as a more “default” version

1.1

added option for Post Titles only
added

1.0

Initial Release.

50 Comments

Hernã Saldanha says:

September 1, 2009 at 1:35 pm

The field “Total Posts” has a bug? The max number of posts to be displayed is the max number of posts in the page?

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  September 1, 2009 at 3:42 pm
  
  @Hernã – Yes, the “Total Posts” currently has a maximum value equal to the total posts to be displayed on a page (as set in the Dashboard under Settings | Reading). Although I would not consider this to be a “bug”.
  
  It is already on my “To Do” list to add a dynamic note on the options panel to reference this quantity (as it is set by each user to their own preference); and, I am also making a note of your idea to expand on this.
  Thank You.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Greg says:

September 2, 2009 at 9:28 am

Is there any chance this could include thumbnails and an option on the widget page to limit the number of words? It’s almost exactly what I’m looking for, and that would make it perfect!

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  September 2, 2009 at 9:48 am
  
  @Greg – Those are some very interesting ideas. I like them both. They will definitely be on my list of items to review for this plugin.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Greg says:

September 2, 2009 at 10:01 am

If it could be configured to work with timthumb and use an existing custom field (with new dimensions), that would be perfect!

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  September 2, 2009 at 10:34 am
  
  @Greg – I will take a look at timthumb as well in the review process. Thanks for this idea, too.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Greg says:

September 2, 2009 at 10:42 am

Glad to be listened to

I just have to figure out how to fix the styling. I copied all my .post entries in css and made them .widget .post, but it’s not changing anything.

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  September 2, 2009 at 11:08 am
  
  @Greg – If you could note which specific post as a reference point, I would be more than happy to take a look.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
VVOR says:

October 2, 2009 at 2:29 am

Thanks for the great plugin, I’m going to use it for my new design that isn’t active yet.

Again.. tnx!

» Reply to this Comment «
Three Plugins to Update | Design by JellyBeen says:

October 3, 2009 at 12:10 pm

[...] BNS Featured Category (version 1.4) [...]

» Reply to this Comment «
Lucio Carvalho says:

November 8, 2009 at 3:51 pm

I like add a simple text in widget, but.. Can you help me? Thanks so much, Lucio

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  November 8, 2009 at 4:50 pm
  
  @Lucio – What text did you want to add, and where did you want to add it?
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Lucio Carvalho says:

November 8, 2009 at 6:24 pm

I would like to add a field text formatted (free write) before posts for each category. Like a presentation of each category selected.

Thanks for your atention
Lucio

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  November 8, 2009 at 10:54 pm
  
  @Lucio – I believe I understand what you are asking for. Making those changes would be some work. Additional options, and a full text box for typing in would need to be added to the layout. It is an interesting idea, but well beyond a simple solution. I will add the idea for review at a later date.
  
  Although it does give me an slightly different idea: add the first featured category’s description, as an option. This may allow you to “free write a presentation” and is more likely to be implemented in an upcoming release.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  November 14, 2009 at 11:46 am
  
  @Lucio – Have a look at version 1.6 of the plugin. I have added the Category Description display option that I believe will meet your needs.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Errances says:

November 10, 2009 at 5:29 pm

Hi Edward,
Excuses for my bad english

Thanks for this plugin which almost suits my needs!
Just a little thing: I’m not a “pro” in php, so do you have just a piece a code which can let me have more posts in your plugin than in my home page???
Explanations: In the second colums of my site, i want to replace the video wall actually in place by a list of “short news”… So i wanted to put them in a single category, and exclude this category from the rest oh home

Maybe a little change in the code would do that, waiting for a new version of your plugin as explained in an other reply in this page?

Thanks in advance;)

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  November 10, 2009 at 7:36 pm
  
  Adding code to override the dynamic maximum post count from the Dashboard is still on the to-do list. I will be revisiting the plugin code soon; and, will make a point of looking at this item again. Thank you for the reminder.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Paige Lahaise says:

November 15, 2009 at 11:50 pm

Hey again Cais,

I got this error when I tried to upgrade to the current version:

Cannot redeclare load_my_bns_fc_widget() (previously declared in /home/content/44/4799444/html/wp-content/plugins/bns-featured-category/bns-featured-category.php:22) in /home/content/44/4799444/html/wp-content/plugins/bns-featured-category/bns-featured-category.php on line 23

Got it with both the category and the tag plug-in.

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  November 16, 2009 at 7:28 am
  
  @Paige – First thing to try is to remove the plugin (delete if necessary) then re-install it. I have seen this error before, but I also believed I had corrected it. Let me know … Thanks.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Paige Lahaise says:

November 18, 2009 at 2:09 pm

I went to uninstall and it shows version 1.6.2, so I guess it upgraded successfully and randomly generated the error. Thanks for all your hard work!

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  November 18, 2009 at 3:16 pm
  
  @Paige – Thanks for the update! I appreciate your time letting me know of the issue you experienced.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Lucio Carvalho says:

November 23, 2009 at 6:53 am

Thanks so much
Lucio

» Reply to this Comment «
finid says:

January 7, 2010 at 1:01 pm

Great plugin and thanks for all the effort. Would be nice if we could have template tags.

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  January 7, 2010 at 1:27 pm
  
  @finid – Thank you! What did you have in mind for “template tags”?
  
  » Reply to this Comment «

finid says:

January 7, 2010 at 1:43 pm

Basically, tags that could be used to embed the output of the plugin in non-widgetized parts of a theme.

» Reply to this Comment «

Edward Caissie says:

January 7, 2010 at 2:46 pm

@finid – Ah, yes, that is what I suspected. At the moment it can be done using the_widget() function. This is from “trunk”:

the_widget (line 1291)

Output an arbitrary widget as a template tag

    * since: 2.8

void the_widget (string $widget, [array $instance = array()], [array $args = array()])

    * string $widget: the widget's PHP class name (see default-widgets.php)
    * array $instance: the widget's instance settings
    * array $args: the widget's sidebar args

Let me know if you need help with the specific parameters. I have not found documentation for this function beyond what is in ../wp-includes/widgets.php, yet.

» Reply to this Comment «

Edward Caissie says:

January 7, 2010 at 3:17 pm

@finid – Here is some working “clean” default code you can start with:

<?php
the_widget(
  'BNS_Featured_Category_Widget',
  $instance = array(
    'title'           => 'Featured Category',
    'cat_choice'      => '1',
    'count'           => '0', /* resets count to zero as default */
    'show_count'      => '3',
    'show_meta'       => false,
    'show_comments'   => false,
    'show_cats'       => false,
    'show_cat_desc'   => false,
    'show_tags'       => false,
    'only_titles'     => false,
    'show_full'       => false,
    'excerpt_length'  => ''
  ),
  $args = array (
    'before_widget'   => '',
    'before_title'    => '',
    'after_title'     => '',
    'after_widget'    => ''
  )
);
?>

» Reply to this Comment «

shoaib says:

January 18, 2010 at 5:53 pm

thnx for such a wonderful plugin,do have any plans on including the thumbnails function?
That would be awesome.

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  January 18, 2010 at 6:55 pm
  
  @shoaib – Thanks for the compliments! Adding post thumbnails is still on the review list, especially with the new functionality added in WordPress 2.9
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Scott says:

February 2, 2010 at 6:50 pm

This plugin works fine for me, but I still don’t understand how to edit the CSS for this… I tried using
.bnsfc-cat-desc {font-style: italic;}

as a test, but nothing changes. I just want to tighten up the spacing between the UL of each post and to have a solid line under each one. (Default is a dotted line?)

Hmm…

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  February 2, 2010 at 7:04 pm
  
  @Scott – The basic styling of the items in the widget follows from the styles that would be used by your archive/category template page. I added additional CSS classes so you could modify the widget output to look differently if you wish.
  
  Looking at your website using your “Comix” as a sample, try this bit of CSS in your style.css file:
```
.bns-featured-category .post {margin: 0 0 10px;}
```
  The CSS you tried above would only affect the Category Description which does not appear to be in use with the Comix example.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
  - scottAD says:
    
    February 2, 2010 at 9:05 pm
    
    That did it! Perfect!! Thank you so much for making this, btw!
    
    » Reply to this Comment «
    - Edward Caissie says:
      
      February 2, 2010 at 11:59 pm
      
      That’s great! … and you are welcome.
      
      » Reply to this Comment «
Eric says:

March 2, 2010 at 11:27 am

Is there any way to apply different style classes to the category headings based on the category ID or name? It seems that they’re just using the widget-header class, but I need to make each category heading look slightly different.
Thanks, by the way, for your work on this plugin.

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  March 2, 2010 at 12:17 pm
  
  @Eric – A quick look at what you are suggesting would indicate that a single category class identifier could easily be added to the code, but the plugin functionality allows for multiple categories in the same instance.
  
  In this case, I will be investigating the multiple category modification idea further before releasing additional code. Thank you for the idea!
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
  - Eric says:
    
    March 2, 2010 at 5:51 pm
    
    If you point me in the right direction in the plugin code, I might be able to contribute a patch that does it. We need something like this ASAP for a specific project, so I’m motivated to make it happen
    
    » Reply to this Comment «
    - Edward Caissie says:
      
      March 2, 2010 at 7:07 pm
      
      If you are looking at “re-styling” the title, then you will need to work with the code on line 93.
      
      /* Title of widget (before and after defined by themes). */ if ( $title ) echo $before_title . $title . $after_title;
      
      Modify by adding a wrapping ‘div’ around the ‘$title’ variable … without testing, this may work:
      
      /* Title of widget (before and after defined by themes). */ if ( $title ) echo $before_title . '<span class="bnsfc-cat-' . $cat_choice . '">' . $title . '</span>' . $after_title;
      
      » Reply to this Comment «
      - Edward Caissie says:
        
        March 2, 2010 at 7:15 pm
        
        NB: Expect this to break (badly) if more than one category is used in the instance.
        
        » Reply to this Comment «
Craig says:

April 2, 2010 at 6:56 am

I cant seem to get the plug in to work (I am a bit new to this though so please bear with me)

when I put in the category title i get the following on the site:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /home/tuppence/public_html/wp-content/plugins/bns-featured-category/bns-featured-category.php on line 98

any any idea what I am doing wrong?

Thanks

Craig

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  April 2, 2010 at 10:48 am
  
  @Craig – Thank you for choosing to use the BNS Featured Category plugin. Although I am not certain what is causing your error at this moment, at line 98 the code references the Category choice(s) and the number of posts to show, what specific values are you using?
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
  - Craig says:
    
    April 2, 2010 at 11:23 am
    
    I tried using the category name as I am not sure where to find a number for the categories ?
    
    » Reply to this Comment «
    - Edward Caissie says:
      
      April 2, 2010 at 4:10 pm
      
      @Craig – This article may be helpful with finding IDs in WordPress: http://wpfirstaid.com/2009/12/find-wordpress-id/
      
      » Reply to this Comment «
Zoe says:

April 7, 2010 at 12:24 pm

Hello! I love the idea of this plugin and the tag plugin but I am having trouble with both of them.

- neither seem to consistently work with the widget locationalizer plugin, which is unfortunate
- more importantly, with featured categories, I’m not able to get multiple instances of the widget to show up in the same widget area or even in different widget areas on the same page

Is this a conflict with the theme I’m using (Atahualpa) or is it a problem with the plugin?

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  April 7, 2010 at 1:27 pm
  
  @Zoe – Thank you for choosing the BNS Featured plugins.
  
  Although I cannot speak to the issues you are having in regards to the “locationalizer” plugin, or issues that may result from using Atahualpa I have as proof of concept added the “Showcases” category into the same widget area as the “WordPress” category and I am seeing no issues.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Werner says:

May 3, 2010 at 11:34 am

I like your plugin very much, but I don’t know, how to adjust it to the style of my blog. Could you tell me? Thanks in advance, Werner

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  May 3, 2010 at 12:03 pm
  
  @Werner – Thank You! The plugin is using the style of your “posts”:
```
.post {
  background:url("images/box.gif") repeat-x scroll left top #FFFFFF;
  border:1px solid #BBBBBB;
  margin:0 0 10px;
  padding:1px;
}
```
  You will need to add element(s) that reference the plugin content more specifically. Try looking at something like this:
```
li.widget .post {
  /* your styles here */
}
```
  » Reply to this Comment «
  - Werner says:
    
    May 5, 2010 at 8:27 am
    
    Thank you for your support. Werner
    
    » Reply to this Comment «
Darren says:

August 24, 2010 at 12:40 pm

Hi,

Great plugin. It is almost perfect for what I am looking for except one thing. How can I make it so the posts are random? I have it set to display 3 at the moment, but it’s just the same 3 each time I refresh the page. I need to be able to sell a featured post section to my customers so need it to randomly display from a certain category.

Any coding I can change?

Thanks

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  August 24, 2010 at 10:38 pm
  
  @Darren – You can look at the query_posts() function that is used and try adding more parameters as that is the key to what is being displayed (~ line 99).
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Darren says:

August 25, 2010 at 12:44 am

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I took a look at the link you sent, and think I need to add ‘orderby=rand’ somewhere to the coding. Unfortunately I really don’t know anything about HTML so I don’t know where to add it. Any chance you could let me know exactly what I need to add and where?

Thanks

» Reply to this Comment «