Note: Unfortunately this method conflicts with “Advanced excerpt” plugin. Probably you would want to disable it. Or you may uncheck “Show post excerpt” in widget settings.
There is a very easy way to implement “picture of the day” widget in WordPress. It requires zero coding and besides it is based on the core functionality of the WordPress. So, no hacks.
Here is a recipe for you.
- Install Category Posts Widget and activate it. It will show posts from a certain category in a sidebar.
- So now we have to create a category, let’s give it the title — “Image of the day”.
- We put the Category Posts widget to the sidebar and configure it to show the last post from “Image of the day” category. We disable excerpt but enable thumbnail
- That’s all. Create a post, set the format to “Image” if your theme allows to do so (makes the post to be looking nicely), then upload the image, insert it to the post and set it as Featured Image. Don’t forget to write custom excerpt if you checked the appropriate checkbox. That’s all.