I had a friend create this .. took him like 5mins to do it.

very simple...... he said.. LMAO..

Demo:http://256studio.com on sidebar..
Q

<div class="menu">
<h3>Latest News</h3>

[list]
<?php
$sql = 'SELECT title, titlelink FROM zp_zenpage_news WHERE `show`=1 ORDER BY date DESC LIMIT 5';
$result = query($sql);
while($latest_news = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
echo '
[*]).']'.htmlspecialchars($latest_news['title']).'
';
}
?>
[/list]
</div>

to get more listed please change the 5 to what every number you need.
from:
DESC LIMIT 5';
to:
DESC LIMIT 10';

Q

And why didn't you just use the functions that are already there??

[list=1]
[*]http://www.zenphoto.org/documentation/plugins/zenpage/_plugins---zenpage-template-functions.php.html#functiongetLatestNews
[*]http://www.zenphoto.org/documentation/plugins/zenpage/_plugins---zenpage-template-functions.php.html#functionprintLatestNews
[*]http://www.zenphoto.org/documentation/plugins/zenpage/_plugins---zenpage-functions.php.html#functiongetNewsArticles
[/list]

i had a friend look at the docs and he did it that way..
if there is a cleaner way could someone post the code?

Q

That's what I did above...

Why, When you echo getLatestNews() you end up with Array

Then if you use implode on it you get Array times 5?

What is the correct way to use this function?

Because that function returns an multidimensional array. You need to use a forech loop and call the field to be echoed like in the example you posted above. Why don't you use printLatestNews()? That even prints a list as all the other functions in the sidebar.