Comments on: BNS Featured Category

By: fred

fred — Tue, 01 May 2012 02:19:13 +0000

I kind of wondered if that was the case. I will see what I can do with the theme. Thanks for the reply.

By: Edward Caissie

Edward Caissie — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:35:58 +0000

@Fred – The “gap” between posts you see in the widget output is nearly completely dependent on the theme and its style(s); the plugin’s included minimal style is more for the hyperlink anchors and the shortcode related output.

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:29:57 +0000

Checked it out, works really well! I checked it in Opera, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox and it works fine. I was wondering where in the code the padding or margin is that controls the space between the bottom of the text and the next article – not the space in between the articles, but in the article itself. Hope this isn’t too confusing. Basically, I notice I have a fair gap of probably a full line before the end of the article. I would like to tighten that up a little bit, but I can’t find where the padding or margin settings are for each article being shown. Thanks for all your help! You have a great plug-in. I look forward to further updates!

By: Edward Caissie

Edward Caissie — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 01:41:05 +0000

@Fred – Just a quick update note … I have worked out the post order option. Although I haven’t released it to the WordPress Extend Plugins repository, yet, it is available for testing purposes from its GitHub repository here. Feel free to give it a run; I’m still playing around with the date range idea.

By: Edward Caissie

Edward Caissie — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 01:44:35 +0000

@Fred – I’m glad that modification worked; it shouldn’t take a lot to add it as an option. Now, the idea of a date range option as well, that is intriguing … I’ll add it as a review item. Thanks for the idea!

By: Fred

Fred — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 01:05:06 +0000

Thanks that worked fine. You have a great plug in. I bought and used Recent Posts Pro but it does not function properly in Opera. I have had a lot of readers emailing and complaining. Your program works in all the major browsers I have tested. Chrome, IE, Firefox and Opera. Recent Posts Pro has some pretty cool features but even it lacks a way to indicate “SHOW POSTS OLDER THAN…. and then a date”. This would be an excellent way to draw attention to old posts. I have tried a lot of plug ins but none work well for showing old posts. Instead within Recent Posts Pro I can list the ID of posts that I want to randomly show. It’s a bit tedious but it lets me target those old posts and bring them back to life. You might want to consider that for your plug in. Either or both would work. Either selecting older posts by ID AND/OR selecting a BEFORE DATE to show older posts would work. You could certainly consider charging a small fee for your category plug in when you add those types of features. There is just nothing available that actually works and certainly nothing that is being maintained and updated. Many of these post type plugins are years old and do not work well. Thanks again and I look forward to your next update. Hope you add the random as a select so I can show some recent posts by ascending or descending and others by random. That would be great! Take care.

By: Edward Caissie

Edward Caissie — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:32:26 +0000

@Fred – Thanks for the compliment!
As to making the posts display in a random order:

It’s on the plugin’s TODO list (now … thanks, again);
Until I can fit it into my schedule, have a look at the following code line (at or near line 235).

query_posts( "cat=$cat_choice&posts_per_page=$show_count&offset=$offset" );

Change it to:

query_posts( "cat=$cat_choice&posts_per_page=$show_count&offset=$offset&orderby=rand" );

This is untested, but should work … I will look at adding options to order the posts in the three standard methods of ascending, descending and random in a future update.

By: Fred

Fred — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 03:25:19 +0000

Great plugin. I am working on my site (not up yet) and was wondering when I put the BNS featured category on the sidebar so it shows on every post, what code do I change to have it pick random posts throughout the category I have selected so each time a post is loaded the posts in BNS featured category change. Right now it is always the same on every post in the sidebar. Thanks.

By: Edward Caissie

Edward Caissie — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:13:52 +0000

@Abe – Asking for specific display changes to the plugin will in most cases also require a point of reference such as your web site where you are using the plugin.

By: Edward Caissie

Edward Caissie — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:12:34 +0000

@Abe – There is currently no configuration that allows for the post title and featured image only. I have added a To-Do to the project to review this possibility, though. As to the “space” between the posts, this is relevant to the theme you are using …