For my own theme - which I am currently designing - I wanted the 5 most recent posts to be displayed in the right sidebar. So I tried to use the query_posts() template tag with the parameter ’showposts=5′.

Well, it worked for the sidebar - the only problem was: now each and every post was shown in the main section of the page, even if the URL pointed to just one single post! I tried to set back the parameters using $query_string, but that did not work.

That made me kind of wonder why it works in my current (alternated) MistyLook theme: I use the same method to display the 5 most recent posts in the sidebar - and it works fine!

I found out that - in the MistyLook theme - the sidebar is included AFTER The Loop, which means that the main section remains unaffected by calling query_posts(). In my own theme, the right sidebar is included BEFORE, and that means that it will also affect The Loop, i.e. the original query is lost - WordPress “forgets” that e.g. a single post is supposed to appear.

I did a Google search and happened to find the get_posts() template tag which does not change the SQL query and works fine.

I changed the code as follows:

<ul class="sidebox_ul">
<?php
     global $post;
     $recent_posts = get_posts('numberposts=5');
     foreach($recent_posts as $post) : ?>
          <li class="sidebox_li"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
     <?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

This works great!

I also looked for a similar tag for comments, but found none. So I think I will remain using the WP Plugin Recent Comments.