<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WordPress-Drop-Down.jpg" alt="WordPress Drop Down" width="270" height="180" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9562" />You probably want your readers to be able to follow your most recent posts easily, right? There is actually a way to show your recent posts displayed in a drop down on WordPress for this purpose. You may tried to use the Category widget in WordPress that works similarly, but many people want the option to display their recent posts in a simple drop down. Here is a look at how to do just that. 

<h2>Why get a drop down for WordPress?</h2>

You’ll notice that WordPress already has a built-in widget for recent posts that can be added to the side bar or any widget-friendly area of your page. It’s a simple tool that allows you to list your recent posts with the amount being of your choosing. 

If you want more 10 of your most recent posts though, you’ll end up taking up a great deal of space in your side bar. For this reason, some are finding that a drop down menu would make more sense as a way to display recent posts in a compact manner. A collapsible, drop-down list would make more sense for space on a user’s WordPress page. 

<h2>How to get a drop down menu manually </h2>

If you’ve decided that a drop-down menu makes more sense for you, you can copy and paste a code for it in your theme’s functions.php file or a plugin on your site. The method would use a built-in wp_get_recent_posts function. After you’ve copied and pasted it, you could use a shortcode in your WordPress post, widgets, or pages. 

<h2>Adding the drop down through a plugin</h2>

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Collapse-o-matic.png" alt="Collapse-o-matic" width="741" height="224" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-9563" />

If you prefer to go the route of plugins, add the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/jquery-collapse-o-matic/">Collapse-O-Matic plugin</a> to make your recent posts available on WordPress. This would show as a collapsible list of recent posts that expands only when clicked on making it a great space-saving option. The plugin will show you anything using a shortcode after you’ve installed it. There aren’t any settings that have to be configured. Afterwards, you’ll have to add shortcode in posts, pages, and text widgets. 

You can more easily display your recent posts by going a step above what WordPress automatically offers and installing a collapsible list option for your website. Choose from a manually addition or download the plugin and then follow the steps to get the shortcode on the right areas of your WordPress. 
