list posts in certain category on homepage

This is what I use:

<?php query_posts('cat=1&showposts=5'); ?>
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
  <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
    <?php the_excerpt() ?>
  </li>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

Just change cat=1 to your desired category.

Thanks for this Kalessin. It worked great.

If i wanted to put this on a normal page. How would i do this? because it seems to just show the above code and ignore everything else.

I have the following:-

<?php
/*
Template Name: Sign Up
*/
?>

<?php get_header(); ?>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

<div id="content" class="contact">

	<div id="randreviews">
		<?php query_posts('cat=6&showposts=5'); ?>
			<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
					<?php
						$images = get_children(
						array(
							'post_parent' => $post->ID,
							'post_status' => 'inherit',
							'post_type' => 'attachment',
							'post_mime_type' => 'image',
							'order' => 'ASC',
							'orderby' => 'menu_order'
							)
						);

						if ( $images ) {
							$count = 1;
							foreach ( $images as $id => $image ) {
								if( $count === 1 ) {
									$img = wp_get_attachment_url( $image->ID );
									$link = get_permalink( $post->ID );
									print "\n\n" . '<a href="' . $link . '"><img src="' . $img . '" alt="" /></a>';
								}
								$count++;
							}
						}
					?>
			<?php endwhile; ?>
		<?php endif; ?>
	</div>

	<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

	<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

		<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>					

		<?php the_content(); ?>

	<?php endwhile; ?>

	<?php else : ?>

		<h2>Not found!</h2>
		<p><?php _e('Sorry, this page does not exist.'); ?></p>

	<?php endif; ?>

	<?php if(is_page(array('80'))) {
		insert_cform('2');
	} ?>	

</div>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

Basically, you get your posts with query_posts() then you have

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
formatting for each post goes here
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

That’s the end of the Loop. If you want to do another Loop, you have to start with a new query_posts() before you go into if (have_posts()) again.

I’ve got a featured post category and used Kalessin’s code on my homepage to create links to featured posts, but somehow I end up displaying the posts in full right after that. I think I need to reset:

<?php query_posts('cat=8&showposts=5'); ?>

so it stops looking at cat=8 and looks for the most recent posts. Anybody know how I manage that reset or whatnot?

You need to create a new query..

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/The_Loop#Multiple_Loops_Example_1

I figured as much, I just didn’t know what to query. I did some experimenting and this worked:<?php query_posts('cat=0&showposts=1'); ?>. For future reference, insert the following code between
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?> and <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<?php query_posts('cat=8&showposts=5'); ?>
  <h2>Featured Posts</h2>
  <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
    <div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
      <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
    </div>
<?php endwhile; ?>

<?php query_posts('cat=0&showposts=1'); ?>

Obviously you’ll want to set the first cat= to the ID# for your featured content category and alter the showposts= to display the desired number of posts in the featured posts section as well as the normal number of posts on the main index.

How can I do this with no post-display limit?

In place of showposts=1 use posts_per_page=-1.

See query_posts Page parameters