Thanks for all the tips. I thought I’d post my solution as well in case it’s helpful.
For the excerpt, I inserted a single line at line 66 (before endforeach;) in list_cat_posts.php (v0.4.1):
$output .= "<p>$single->post_excerpt</p>";
I used div, h2, and p tags rather than ul and li. It worked better with my theme and it also fixed the break issue with the excerpt. So, the complete code from line 43 to line 70 (was 69!) looks like this:
function list_category_posts($atts){
$output .= "<div class='custom-style'>";
if($atts['name']!='default' && $atts['id']!='0'){
$category='category_name='.$atts['name'];
}else{
$category='category='.$atts['id'];
}
/*I should check this for the next version: ('category__in' => array(2,6))
to allow posts from many categories.
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Template_Tags/get_posts#Parameters:_WordPress_2.6.2B */
//Build the query for get_posts()
$catposts=get_posts($category.'&numberposts='.$atts['numberposts'].'&orderby='.$atts['orderby'].'&order='.$atts['order']);
foreach($catposts as $single):
$output .= "<h2><a href='".get_permalink($single->ID)."'>".$single->post_title."</a>";
if($atts['date']=='yes'){
$output.=" - ".$single->post_date;
}
if($atts['author']=='yes'){
$lcp_userdata = get_userdata($single->post_author);
$output.=" - ".$lcp_userdata->user_nicename;
}
$output.="</h2>";
$output .= "<p>$single->post_excerpt</p>";
endforeach;
$output .= "</div>";
return $output;
}