How to add a recent post function to a text widget I created for practice?

Question

I am currently being trained to create widgets and my mentor has asked me to create a text widget then add the ability to display the 5 most recent posts (all categories) on it. I am a little stumped on how to add it in as I am very new to this. I will post the code below along with the url. What I was recommended to use is Function Reference/wp get recent posts from the codex but I am stumped on how to get it to work.

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Kevins Textbox
Plugin URI: 
Description: A text widget created by Kevin Ullyott for practice in creating widgets
Author: Kevin Ullyott
Version: 1.0
Author URI:
*/


class kevintext extends WP_Widget {

    public function __construct() {
    parent::WP_Widget(
    // or parent::__construct(
        false, 
        'Kevins Textbox',
        array(
            'description' => __('A text widget created by Kevin Ullyott for practice in creating widgets') 
        )
    );
    ;
}

    public function widget( $args, $instance ) {


        extract( $args );

        $headline = $instance['headline'];      
        $text = $instance['text'];      



        echo $before_widget;

        echo $before_title;

        echo "<p class=\"headline\">$headline</p>";

        echo $after_title;

        echo "<p class=\"text\">$text</p>";

        echo $after_widget;


    }

    public function update( $new_instance, $old_instance ) {
        $instance = array();
        $instance['headline'] = ( $new_instance['headline'] );
        $instance['text'] = ( $new_instance['text'] );
        return $instance;
    }


    public function form( $instance ) {

        $headline = $instance[ 'headline' ];
        $text = $instance[ 'text' ];

        ?>
        <p>
        <label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'headline' ); ?>"><?php _e( 'Headline:' ); ?></label> 
        <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'headline' ); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name( 'headline' ); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr( $headline ); ?>" />
        </p>

        <p>
        <label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'text' ); ?>"><?php _e( 'Text:' ); ?></label> 
        <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'text' ); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name( 'text' ); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr( $text ); ?>" />
        </p>


        <?php 
    }
}

add_action( 'widgets_init', create_function('', 'return register_widget("kevintext");') );


?>

Link to url: http://www.modmacro.us/wpsandbox/

Link to codex function: http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_get_recent_posts

Answer 1

In the function widget( $args, $instance ), which generates the widget output, add the following code before the echo $after_widget; line:

// The Query
$the_query = new WP_Query( array( 'post_type' => 'page', 'posts_per_page' => '3' ) );

// The Loop
while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) :
    $the_query->the_post();
    echo '<li>' . get_the_title() . '</li>';
endwhile;

Additional information can be found on the WordPress Codex.