Diplay content from custom type as widget or sidebar?

Question

You’ll want to first set up a new query and enter the loop. Here’s how you would set up a query to retrieve only posts from your custom post type:

$args = array(
    "post_type"=>"your-post-type",
    "posts_per_page"=>"3"
);
$query = new WP_Query($args);

Then, you need to enter the loop in order to retrieve the data you’re looking for:

have_posts()): $query->while(have_posts()): $query->the_post(); ?>

<!-- Your content goes here -->

Then, you can just use standard WordPress loop functions like the_title(); and the_excerpt(); to display the content for the current item in the loop. Ideally, you would want a template kind of like this:

<h2><? the_title(); ?></h2>
<? the_post_thumbnail(); ?>
<p><? the_excerpt(); ?> - <a href="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/115528/<? the_permalink(); ?>">Read more</a>.</p>

Your mileage will vary. You can start with the above, and then theme the result with CSS to achieve the desired effect.

Here’s all the code:

<?
$args = array(
    "post_type"=>"your-post-type",
    "posts_per_page"=>"3"
);
$query = new WP_Query($args);

?>

<? if($query->have_posts()): $query->while(have_posts()): $query->the_post(); ?>

    <h2><? the_title(); ?></h2>
    <? the_post_thumbnail(); ?>
    <p><? the_excerpt(); ?> - <a href="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/115528/<? the_permalink(); ?>">Read more</a>.</p>

<? endwhile; endif; ?>

Hopefully this helps!