For a while now I have wanted a simple method for automatically creating lists (with links) to "similar" or "recent" articles, which could be embedded inside other Joomla articles. There are a wealth of plugins to do this in all manner of fancy ways, with cascading drop-down menus and table-of-contents formatting, and so on. Mostly they are solutions for creating menus and I just wanted a simple bullet list. For example, the most recent five articles in a given section or category. I also wanted to be able to embed this within the text of another article, and for it to automatically update as the site content changes.

Currently I'm testing a combination of a module called "Article Lister", and using this in conjunction with a plugin called "Modules Anywhere". I created multiple instances of the Article Lister module and pointed them at different article Categories. You can leave the Article Lister modules unpublished, using an override setting in Modules Anywhere. For ease of use I named the modules by Category - for example, "artlist_Wainwrights" and "artlist_Recipes". These modules can now be embedded into an article (by use of the Modules Anywhere plugin) simply by enclosing a reference in curly brackets.

 
Latest Wainwrights Walks:
Embedded below using the syntax: module artlist_Wainwrights enclosed in a pair of brackets, { xxx }

• Scafell Pike from Seathwaite (16km)
• Great Gable, via Base Brown (11km)
• One Year of Wainwright Bagging (2010-2011)
• Great End, via Seathwaite Fell (15km)
• Angletarn Pikes via Place Fell (23km)

Latest Recipes:
Embedded below using the syntax: module artlist_Recipes enclosed in a pair of brackets, { xxx }

• Spicy Oven Potato Wedges
• Chicken Chow
• Rice with bacon and mushrooms
• Spaghetti with Olive Oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano
• Chilli Mushroom Pasta

 
For me, this gives me exacly what I needed. Simplicity itself to install and configure the modlues/plugin, and complete flexibility to where you use the lists. More intuitively, you would probably normally use the "Article Lister" module to povide a quick set of links in a sidebar. I tested this and it works great, but it wasn't what I had in mind just yet - but I will be using this functionality in future. All in all, a very easy fix to something I'd puzzled over for a while!