favrik_recent_posts

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: favrik Recent Posts 
Plugin URI: http://blog.favrik.com/
Description: Display recent posts by date: 1) grouping by year, month,day, and 2) just the date at the left side of the title. Based on the work by <a href="http://www.ardamis.com">Oliver Baty</a>. <a href=" http://www.ardamis.com/2007/06/25/adding-the-post-date-to-wp_get_archives/">Details are here</a>.
Version: 0.1
Author: Favio Manriquez
Author URI: http://blog.favrik.com

    Copyright 2007  Favio Manriquez  (email : favio@favrik.com)

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
*/


/**
 Most important configuration variable is $group:
 0      -       Just put the date at the left side.
 1      -       Group by year, month, and day.
 2      -       Group in columns  New parameters: cols = number of posts per column
                                                  cclass = column class
*/
function favrik_recent_posts($args = '') {
    global $wp_locale, $wpdb;

    $G = array(
        'FULL_DATE'  => 0,
        'DATE_PARTS' => 1,
        'COLUMNS'    => 2,
    );

    // params fun
    parse_str($args, $r);
    $defaults = array(
        'group' => 1,
        'cols'  => 2,
        'cclass' => 'column',
        'limit' => '10',
        'before' => '<li>',
        'after' => '</li>',
        'show_post_count' => false,
        'show_post_date' => true,
        'date' => 'F jS, Y',
        'order_by' => 'post_date DESC'
    );
    $r = array_merge($defaults, $r);
    extract($r);
    
    // output 
    $OUTPUT     = '';  // plugin output
    $outer_date = '';
    $inner_date = '';
    $date_check = '';
    $year       = '';
    $month      = '';
    $day        = '';
    
    // the query
    $where = apply_filters('getarchives_where', "WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish'");
    $join  = apply_filters('getarchives_join', "");
    $qry   = "SELECT ID, post_date, post_title, post_name 
              FROM $wpdb->posts $join 
              $where ORDER BY $order_by LIMIT $limit";
    $posts = $wpdb->get_results($qry);
    $post_number = count($posts);
    $current_post = 1;
    if ($posts) {
        foreach ($posts as $post) {
            if ($post->post_date != '0000-00-00 00:00:00') {
                $url       = get_permalink($post);
                $post_time = strtotime($post->post_date);

                if ($group == $G['COLUMNS']) {
                    if ($current_post == 1) {
                        $OUTPUT .= '<div class="'.$cclass.'"><ul>' . "\n";
                    }
                    $current_date = date($date, $post_time);
                    if ($date_check != $current_date) {
                        $date_check = $current_date;
                        $outer_date = '<li class="date">' . $current_date . '</li>' . "\n";
                    }
                }

                if ($group == $G['FULL_DATE']) { // dates at the side of the post link
                    $inner_date = '<em class="date">' . date($date, $post_time) . '</em> ';
                }

                if ($group == $G['DATE_PARTS']) { // grouping by year then month-day
                    $y = date('Y', $post_time);
                    if ($year != $y)  {
                        $year = $y;
                        $outer_date = '<li class="year">' . $year . '</li>';
                    }
                    $m = date('F Y', $post_time);
                    if ($month != $m) {
                        $month = $m;
                        $outer_date .= '<li class="month">' . substr($month, 0, -4) . '</li>';
                    } 
                    $d = date('jS', $post_time);
                    if ($day != $d) {
                        $day = $d;
                        $inner_date = '<em>' . $day . '</em>';
                    }
                }
                $text = strip_tags(apply_filters('the_title', $post->post_title));
                $OUTPUT .= get_archives_link(
                    $url, $text, $format, $outer_date . $before . $inner_date, $after
                );

                if ($group == $G['COLUMNS']) {
                    if ($current_post % $cols == 0) {
                        $OUTPUT .= '</ul></div>' ."\n\n";
                        if ($post_number > $current_post) {
                            $OUTPUT .= '<div class="'.$cclass.'"><ul>' . "\n";
                        }
                    }
                }
                // Reset dates
                $outer_date = '';
                $inner_date = '';
            }

            $current_post += 1;
        }
    }

    echo $OUTPUT;
}