Six/Ten Press Featured Content

If you need a WordPress Featured Posts widget that allows you to easily feature any kind of content, Six/Ten Press Featured Content is the plugin you need. It’s a genetically modified (in a good way) descendant of the Featured Posts widget from the Genesis Framework, but it supports any public post type registered on your WordPress site, from people to testimonials to sermons.

Flexibility at Your Fingertips

Showcase any kind of content, filtered by any kind of term, or specify specific content/posts/pages to show or hide. Optionally show your content in columns. Extra content can be shown as a list, or as a drop down. Show featured images, or don’t. Control the amount of content to show, or show excerpts–or don’t show any content at all.

Every part of the widget output includes filters, so finicky developers can exert granular control. Got a custom content type that uses a custom ordering parameter (or custom field), such as sermons, or events? Use a filter to make sure any widget displaying that content type is always ordered correctly.

Extendable

I’ve worked hard to keep 6/10 Press Featured Content flexible, but easy to use. But what if you want something just a bit more–well, more? Four add-on plugins are now available to make this featured content widget even more powerful:

• Blocks: insert featured content into WordPress’ new block based editor!
• Extras: add extra fields to your featured content widgets
• Carousel: create Slick carousel sliders from your featured content
• Masonry: turn your featured content widget into a Pinterest style layout

Genesis Not Required

Although 6/10 Press Featured Content is related to the original Genesis widget, and uses the same markup, this plugin can be used with any well coded theme. If your theme doesn’t support the plugin’s column class markup, one click will enable a small stylesheet to add them.

Here’s a quick comparison between the Genesis Featured Posts widget and 6/10 Press Featured Content:

Genesis Featured Posts	Six/Ten Press Featured Content
Show featured posts	Show featured posts, pages, any kind of content type
Limit posts by category only	Limit content by category, tag, any term
Order posts by date, title, parent, ID, comment count, or random	Order posts by date, title, parent, ID, comment count, random, menu order, or custom order
	Include or exclude specific content by ID
Featured Image placed before title	Featured Image placed before or after title, or in entry content
Show extra posts as a list	Show extra posts as a list or dropdown
Link to category archive	Link to category, term, and/or custom content type archive

Accessibility-Ready

6/10 Press Featured Content is accessibility-ready, with aria attributes on featured images, and content titles properly added to “read more” links for screen readers. If your theme does not support the screen-reader-text CSS class, enable the plugin stylesheet, or install the “.screen-reader-text” theme support plugin.

Developer Friendly Filters

For the finicky, I mean detail-oriented, developers out there, make use of the filters packed into every nook and cranny of the widget output:

• sixtenpressfeaturedcontent_query_args
• sixtenpressfeaturedcontent_image
• sixtenpressfeaturedcontent_title_text
• sixtenpressfeaturedcontent_entry_meta
• sixtenpressfeaturedcontent_entry_content
• sixtenpressfeaturedcontent_extra_title
• sixtenpressfeaturedcontent_term_link
• sixtenpressfeaturedcontent_archive_link

The filters offer significant control over your output. For example, a custom content type with a unique sorting rule can use the query args filter to ensure that the correct post is output anytime, no matter what widget is used, no matter what widget area.

Under the Hood

Although the 6/10 Press Featured Content plugin’s pedigree is solid–it traces its parentage through Jo Waltham’s excellent Featured Custom Post Type Widget for Genesis directly to the original Genesis Featured Posts widget–it’s been completely cleaned up and rewritten for more power, flexibility, and security. My thanks to Jo for her work, insight, and support.

Screen Shots

Using the Featured Content widget is simple, whether you’re in the Widgets administration screen or in the WordPress Customizer. Use it for any content or custom post type. Either way, the widget creation process is clear and easy:

In the Wild

Sites currently using Six/Ten Press Featured Content include, but are not limited to: Robin Cornett (yes, this one–check the front page especially), The Soul Care Project, SM2, Alternative Shrink.