index.php – show posts of specific cats and only most recent

I’m not sure if this it what you need, but instead of the loop.php try putting your code in index.php at this code

// Exclude Sticky Posts and show remaining normal posts
	$paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
	query_posts( array(
		'post__not_in' => get_option( 'sticky_posts' ),
		'paged' => $paged
		) );

		while (have_posts()) : the_post();
		get_template_part( 'loop', 'index' );

		endwhile;

	?>

I changed that code to this, and it loads the page only showing posts with tag_id of 202 and 82…

// Exclude Sticky Posts and show remaining normal posts
	$paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
	query_posts( array( 'tag__in' => array( 202, 82 ),
						'posts_per_page' => -1
						) );

		while (have_posts()) : the_post();
		get_template_part( 'loop', 'index' );

		endwhile;

	?>

Hi ceh,
Thank you for sending me that. I tried it, what happens is I am getting the five latest posts, so if one cat has 2 posts that are new, the page shows those and the next 3 recent regardless of category…I think the loop is working by recent posts of all the cats I choose in the loop. What my goal is : to show posts from 5 different cats the most recent post from each cat.
here is the code, basically, just like yours but using cat instead of tags

// Exclude Sticky Posts and show remaining normal posts

		$paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
	query_posts( array( 'cat__in' => array( 13,237,1,190,455),
						'posts_per_page' => 5
						) );

		while (have_posts()) : the_post();
		get_template_part( 'loop', 'index' );

		endwhile;

	?>

if cat 13 has 2 posts that are more recent than cat 237, it will exclude 237 and show the two posts from cat 13.
I appreciate your response to this.
Thank you,
K

It’s been a month from the last post here so i hope you’ve already found what you wanted, but in any case, here’s what works from me (live demo @ https://www.blogmag.gr)
Code:

<div id="main-content" class="group">
            <?php
			$cat_args=array(
            				'include' => '3,4,5,6,7,8', //for these categories, show posts--> , 'orderby' => 'name','order' => 'ASC'
            				'orderby' => 'id'
							);
            $categories=get_categories($cat_args);
            foreach($categories as $category) {
            	$args=array(
							'showposts' => 4,
							'category__in' => array($category->term_id)
							);
                echo '<div class="front_category_box group">';
                $posts=get_posts($args);
					if ($posts) {
						$count = 0;
						while (have_posts()) : the_post();
							$count++;
							if ($count <= 1) :
							?>
                                <h2><?php the_category(', ') ?></h2>
                                <h3><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h3>
                                <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?></a>
                                <p class="front_exerpt"><?php $excerpt = strip_tags(get_the_excerpt()); echo $excerpt; ?> </p>
                                <p class="front_read_more"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">Διαβ?στε Περισσ?τερα</a></p>
                                <p class="front_view_comments"><?php comments_popup_link('0 σχ?λια »', '1 Σχ?λιο »', '% Σχ?λια »'); ?></p>
                                <h4>Τελευτα?α - <?php the_category(', ') ?></h4>
                                <ul class="front_latest_news">
							<?php
                            else :
							?>
                                    <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"> <?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
                            <?php
							endif;
                        endwhile;
					} // if ($posts)
					else {

				} //else // if ($posts)
				echo "</ul></div>";
			} // foreach($categories
            ?>
		</div><!-- END of main-content -->

The count check is for showing the first post of each category including the thumbnail and the rest three without one. Hope it helps somebody ??