Is this not a setting you can use?
Select for the category “All categoies”, for the sort order “Random” and a specific number of posts, e.g. 5.
Another option is our Same Category Posts widget: https://wordpress.org/plugins/same-category-posts/
It displays only on single post pages out of the assigned categories from the shown post.
So the output post list is dynamic, this means on each post page there are other posts shown.
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for getting back to me! Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in my question… I want to show only one category, but I want that category to be randomly chosen. So the first time I load the page, the sidebar will be populated with posts from just from the “Fish” category; the next time I load the page it might be the “Birds” category… always just one category, but which category is random. Ideally, the category name would go into the title bar, just as it does when a category is manually chosen.
Choosing All Categories with a random sort order will show a number of categories sorted randomly, no?
We support in our premium version (http://tiptoppress.com/term-and-category-based-posts-widget/) filter hooks which you can customize the filter query.
We give you a free tail on localhost for the development: http://tiptoppress.com/free-trail-localhost/
Here are some examples on GistHub, so the filters can add as a widget: https://gist.github.com/DanielFloeter/f50bbf0ee9433c68bcfa1d5ca3ddcf3d
If this a option for you, I can help to develop a custom filter for you?
Great, thanks, I’ll check it out and get back to you.
John.
Great. If you are interested in, please write us here with some short words to your message that we talked here before, thanks: http://tiptoppress.com/contact/
Greetings
Daniel
Hello Nuketunguska,
we implement a feature like you supposed in the Category Posts Widget in the next version.
Are you familair with GitHub? Because you can download the code there: https://github.com/tiptoppress/category-posts-widget/tree/4.8
Upload the ZIP file with WordPress (Dashboard > Plugins > Installed Plugins > “Add New” button > “Upload Plugin” button >) or copy it to your plugin folder ([your-wp-installation]/wp-content/plugins/category-posts) to your WordPress installation.
But please be careful, it is not a release version only a nightly build!
And in the Term And Category Based Posts Widget we will be have this feature as the shown categories and terms can be multi selected which will be randomly shown.
If you want to say thanks, you can rate our widget with a 5-star rating here https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/category-posts/reviews/?filter=5
Thanks!
😉
