using the loop on a page

Question

I'm trying to display the excerpt of the most recent post and just the titles of the 4 previous posts before that at the top of a page and display the content of the page below. I have a solution that's close and works but not sure if I need to reset query and how to get excerpt on most recent post and title on 4 previous. Here's the page with post titles at top (B's recommended articles) and the content (that can be edited) of the page is underneath. Here's the code http://pastebin.com/41x30Uyb

Answer 1

To use template tags within a foreach loop outputting the results of get_posts, use the function setup_postdata() to populate the global $post with the data it needs. To style the first post differently, use a counter to keep track of which post you're outputting. After finishing output, use wp_reset_postdata() to restore the $post global. wp_reset_query is only necessary if you modify the global $wp_query.

$posts = get_posts( 'category=124&numberposts=5' );
$count = 1;
foreach( $posts as $post ) {
    setup_postdata($post);
    if( 1 == $count ){
        the_title();
    } else {
        the_excerpt();
    }
    $count++;
}
wp_reset_postdata();