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Free Plugin by Aleksandar Urošević v1.5.0

Posts per Cat

Group recent posts by category and show them inside boxes organized to columns.

Posts per Cat

The facts

Rating
5★ from 8
Active installs
200+
Price
Free
Last updated
12 May 2025
Added
Mar 2009
Requires WP
5.0
Tested up to
WP 6.8.8
Requires PHP
7.4
Downloads
53,538

Our analysis

AI-assisted

Posts per Cat is a WordPress plugin that allows you to display recent posts from selected categories in a structured format. You can choose how many posts to show and how to organise them into columns, making it suitable for sites that want to highlight content by category.

This plugin offers various customisation options through shortcodes, allowing you to include or exclude specific categories, toggle the display of child categories, and adjust the layout according to your needs. It is designed for users who want to enhance their site's content presentation without extensive coding knowledge.

Best for: This plugin is best for bloggers and site owners looking to organise and display posts by category.

What it does well

  • Free to use from the WordPress.org directory
  • Customisable display options for categories and posts
  • Supports shortcodes for easy integration
  • SEO optimised permalink URIs
  • Ready for localisation

Where it falls short

  • No information on support or documentation
  • Limited details on user experience or feedback

Verdict

Posts per Cat provides a straightforward solution for displaying recent posts by category. It may be useful for those wanting to enhance their site's structure without complex setups.

From the developer

Aleksandar Urošević's own description of Posts per Cat, lightly tidied.

Posts per Cat is a simple plugin that grab all or only selected categories from blog database, and then list recent N posts from each category, organised in 1-5 columns.

If you are interested to acquisition of plugin, please contact us.

Features

  • choose how many boxes per row will be displayed (one, two, three, four or five)
  • define number of post titles to display per category
  • define category ID’s to exclude
  • define category ID’s to include
  • toggle displaying of child categories
  • ordering boxes by category ID, title or custom (manually entered category ID’s as include list)
  • toggle displaying sticky posts
  • toggle usage of custom list CSS
  • SEO optimized permalink URI’s
  • integrate to template file, use shortcode [ppc] with options or widget
  • ready for localisation
  • template system for single post line in box defined by user in plain HTML with macro keywords for post elements

Shortcode options

You can use shortcode [ppc], with options below (set option in shortcode to override default settings above):

  • columns=2 – Number of columns (1, 2, 3, 4 or 5)
  • minh=0 – Minimal height of box (in px, set to 0 for auto)
  • include=category_ID's – Include category (comma separated category ID’s)
  • exclude=category_ID's – Exclude category (comma separated category ID’s)
  • parent=0 – Only top level categories (0 or 1)
  • order=ID – Order categories by (ID, name or custom)
  • catonly=0 – Only from displayed category archive (0 or 1)
  • noctlink=0 – Do not link category name (0 or 1)
  • more=0 – Standalone link to archives (0 or 1)
  • moretxt="More from" – Archive link prefix
  • posts=5 – Number of headlines per category block
  • porderby=date – Order posts by date, modified, title, name, ID, author
  • porder=DESC – Order sorting DESC or ASC
  • titlelen=34 – Headline length (in characters)
  • shorten=0 – Shorten headline (0 or 1)
  • commnum=0 – Display comment number (0 or 1)
  • nosticky=0 – Hide sticky posts (0 or 1)
  • excerpts=none – Show excerpt (none, first or all)
  • content=0 – Use post content as excerpt (0 or 1)
  • excleng=100 – Excerpt length
  • thumb=0 – Show thumbnail with excerpt (0 or 1)
  • tsize=60 – Thumbnail size, set size in px for thumbnail width (height is same); or set in format WIDTHxHEIGHT (example 220×123); or set predefined custom image size (thumbnail, small, medium, large, full or cusotm defined)

Since version 1.4.0 you can use template to display custom formatted output (post line element). Example:
[ppc]

%title_short%

<span class="comments-meta">(<a href="%comments_link%">%comments_num% comments</a>)</span>
<span class="date-meta">%date% @ %time%</span>
<span class="author-meta"><a href="%author_posts_url%">%author_displayname%</a></span>
%thumbnail%
%excerpt% <a href="%link%">[read more]</a>
[/ppc]

Supported macros:

  • %title%
  • %title_short%
  • %post_content%
  • %excerpt%
  • %thumbnail%
  • %link%
  • %comments_num%
  • %comments_link%
  • %comments_form_link%
  • %datetime%
  • %date%
  • %time%
  • %author_displayname%
  • %author_firstname%
  • %author_lastname%
  • %author_posts_url%

Read the full description on the official page →

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