looking for a site news widget for sidebar

Hi @stargirl1
We do not give recommendations for plugins here, because that would be bias and might attract unnecessary debate between various opinions.

However, you could read this article, that reviews some popular news plugin and hopefully make a choice.

Regards

i’ve been searching everywhere for a plugin that i can use to add site news and updates to my sidebar. every plugin i find is either for a scroll banner at the top of the site, or it’s for aggregating actual news from around the world from other sites.

(Emphasis mine)

So you’re looking to add the latest news (posts) from your own site to your site’s sidebar, not content from an external site?

There’s already the “RECENT POSTS” widget that comes default with every WordPress installation that you can easily add to your sidebar — no need for a plugin. You just have to add custom CSS to style the widget as desired.

There are also a whole lot of recent posts widgets plugins out there come with their own styles and allow you to tweak what you want to display (eg only show posts from a particular category, include thumbnails, etc).

Or did I misunderstand your intent?

@stargirl1:

We do not give recommendations for plugins here, because that would be bias and might attract unnecessary debate between various opinions.

This is the first time I’m hearing this. Can you please point me to the forum policy on this?

Lots of people come here for plugin recommendations, or more commonly, they want to perform some specific task and have no clue where to start. Often a simple link to a plugin in the official WordPress plugins directory solves their problem, and I see now harm in doing so. And reading the guidelines, even links to external resources are allowed (but subject to some conditions.)

I’m thinking you’re mistaken on this one, but I sure have been proven wrong on many occasions ?? If there’s a forum guideline against recommending plugins (even plugins hosted at www.ads-software.com), I sure would love to know.

Hi @gappiah

I totally agree with what you are saying.
However, Have a look at the 12th bullet point of the guidelines.
I intepreted it as avoiding giving any recommendations as per web hosting providers, plugins and the rest.
Perhaps, my intepretation is wrong.
Regards.

We do not give recommendations for plugins here, because that would be bias and might attract unnecessary debate between various opinions.

Randolph i’ve never heard of plugins not being suggested before. are you a moderator? it doesn’t show that you are. in fact in my last support post, i was given the suggestion of a plugin by a support moderator. i have seen that link you provided when i was searching for a solution. the plugins in that link are examples of what i DO NOT wish to accomplish.

George, i’m familiar with the “recent posts” widget. i’ll give that a try. i just don’t know how to add specific posts. i just wasn’t sure if there were better/easier ways to do it with a plugin.

my question other about using a “recent posts” widget is i do not wish to show those posts on the home page, otherwise it would be double. i wish them to only appear in the widget.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by stargirl1.

Randolph, we seem to have replied at the same time so i didn’t see your above comment before i replied. i believe you are incorrect. if you are referring to the point below, it does not say anything about asking about plugins. i asked a very specific question about how to accomplish something. it wasn’t about an opinion.

Avoid asking questions that are more about opinion, like “recommending web hosting providers” or other “discussion topics”, that may lead to pointless wars and/or attract spam replies.

George, i’m familiar with the “recent posts” widget. i’ll give that a try. i just don’t know how to add specific posts. i just wasn’t sure if there were better/easier ways to do it with a plugin.

If your goal is to add a hand-picked selection of posts, perhaps the Posts in Sidebar plugin can help.

This plugin allows you to automatically query your posts and display in the sidebar only the posts meeting certain criteria. You can add the IDs of ONLY the specific posts that you want to display in the sidebar, and ONLY those posts will display.

hi george, my reason for wanting more of a “site news” plugin rather than “recent posts” is wouldn’t the posts be double? once on the main page and once in the widget?

e.g. on my site (you can see the link above in my initial post for an example) the posts on the main page are for photographing snails. the site news is completely different. but i do not wish the site news posts to show on the main page of posts.

would i have to create a new page for site news posts? is it possible to have more than one page of posts with only one category on a page?

@randolphgamo
#12 at https://www.ads-software.com/support/guidelines/#the-bad-stuff says that premium stuff support should be done elsewhere (vendor/seller site/forum or ticket system)
it does not disallow suggesting plugin or theme, even if they are commercial.

You can suggest/recommend plugins/themes here if they are suitable for thread starter needs. (However, do not spam with specific plugin/theme advertisements and referral partner links)

thank you for the clarification Yui

i guess there is no solution to my question?