Query to show images with recent posts in Wordpress sidebar/widget

Question

To show recent items from a Wordpress category in a widget I'm using this code...

<ul>
<?php $recent = new WP_Query("cat=1231&showposts=5"); while($recent->have_posts()) : 
$recent->the_post();?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark">
<?php the_title(); ?>
</a></li>
<?php endwhile; ?>
</ul>

...but how can I make this query also display the first image in each post, and is there any way to set a 'default' image in case there is no image?

Is there also a way to use thumbnails here, rather than loading the full size image and using HTML to resize?

Answer 1

This is probably what you are looking for, found here

function get_first_image() {
   global $post, $posts;
   $first_img = '';
   ob_start();
   ob_end_clean();
   $output = preg_match_all('/<img.+src=[\'"]([^\'"]+)[\'"].*>/i’, $post->post_content,    $matches);
   $first_img = $matches [1] [0];
   if(empty($first_img)){ //Defines a default image
      $first_img = “/images/default.jpg”;
   }
   return $first_img;
}