How to display 5 highest posts in category?

If you want to put the PHP code in your sidebar.php

Use this

<?php if (function_exists('get_highest_rated_category')): ?>
<ul>
<?php get_highest_rated_category(CATEGORY_ID); ?>
</ul>
<?php endif; ?>

Replace CATEGORY_ID with your ID

As usual, this is a sample template. Please adjust it accordingly to your sidebar code. If you are not sure, contact your theme author as that is not within my support scope.

in category 3 more than 50 posts width more than 500 votes…
I have the next PHP code in the sidebar.php

<?php $catid = the_category_ID('');
if ($catid == 3) : ?>
<?php if (function_exists('get_highest_rated_category')): ?>
<div id="ratings-widget-2" class="widget widget_ratings-widget"><h3 class="widget-title">Рейтинг фотографов</h3>
<ul>
<?php get_highest_rated_category(3, 'post', 4, 5); ?>
</ul>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>

output – Unknown (sidebar is empty)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by creokiev.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by creokiev.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by creokiev.

if you replace $catid = the_category_ID(''); with $catid = get_the_category(); then do a var_dump($catid); to ensure it enter the loop first?

I’m trying to understand why we need to get an array if I only need to understand what category we are in. Through var_dump($catid); we get a lot of junk and nothing useful to solve this problem.
print_r(var_dump($catid)) (without loop) is return:
array(1) { [0]=> object(WP_Term)#5492 (16) { ["term_id"]=> int(56) ["name"]=> string(18) "Фотографы" ["slug"]=> string(5) "photo" ["term_group"]=> int(0) ["term_taxonomy_id"]=> int(56) ["taxonomy"]=> string(8) "category" ["description"]=> string(29) "База фотографов" ["parent"]=> int(0) ["count"]=> int(6) ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" ["cat_ID"]=> int(56) ["category_count"]=> int(6) ["category_description"]=> string(29) "База фотографов" ["cat_name"]=> string(18) "Фотографы" ["category_nicename"]=> string(5) "photo" ["category_parent"]=> int(0) } }

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by creokiev.

So your $catid is wrong (nothing to do with the plugin). Because there are multiple categories and hence it is an array. So you need to do $catid[0]-> cat_ID