Displaying Custom Category loop in homepage - wordpress

Question

Thing is, In the homepage of my theme, I want to show post from different category in Different Div. Each DIV will contain 3 post from a category. I need a loop that can pick last 3 post from a specific Category. Can't find any suitable ans for it.
To explain things more easily, here is a demo picture of the Content section,
http://i.imgur.com/5QSzAIS.png
It will be a great help, if someone help me with the code !

Answer 1

<?php query_posts('cat=10&posts_per_page=3'); ?>
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
This should get you started. You need to use this code twice. Where it says cat=10, you should enter your category ID (you can check this when you click on a Category from the admin panel, the the browser it will show something like this http://yourwebsite.com/wp-admin/edit-tags.php?action=edit&taxonomy=category&tag_ID=4&post_type=post)
Where it says tag_ID is the ID of your category.

Answer 2

I'm currently using a different method on a page of the site I'm building which allows me to run multiple loops in one page and specify the category for each one. This method I personally like better as it is more straightforward to me, and I can define the category with the slug instead of the ID.
Instead of using have_posts() and such, you use WP_Query() after defining your array and then wp_reset_postdata() to end your loop. The benefit is that you can keep running loops this way.
I'm also loading the data from custom fields in my posts using get_post_meta, but this method will work without that stuff.
<div class="audioGrid">
<?php
$args = array( 'post_type' => 'post',
'category_name' => 'audio',
'posts_per_page' => 3,
'order' => 'DESC' );
$query1 = new WP_Query($args);
while ( $query1->have_posts() ) {
$query1->the_post();
?>
<div id="<?php echo( basename(get_permalink()) ); ?>" class="grid_item">
<?php the_post_thumbnail( 'audio-thumb' ); ?>
<h3><?php the_title(); ?></h3>
<p><?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'post_description', true); ?></p>
<a target="blank" href="<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'audio_link', true); ?>"></a>
</div>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php } ?>
</div> <?php // end Audio Grid ?>
<?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
<div class="videoGrid">
<?php
$args2 = array( 'post_type' => 'post',
'category_name' => 'video',
'posts_per_page' => 3,
'order' => 'DESC' );
$query2 = new WP_Query($args2);
while ( $query2->have_posts() ) {
$query2->the_post();
?>
<div id="<?php echo( basename(get_permalink()) ); ?>" class="grid_item">
<?php the_post_thumbnail( 'video-thumb' ); ?>
<h3><?php the_title(); ?></h3>
<p><?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'post_description', true); ?></p>
<a target="blank" href="<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'video_link', true); ?>"></a>
</div>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php } ?>
</div> <?php // end Video Grid ?>
<?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
Another cool thing I'm doing is using a custom field to define the order of things and using meta_key and meta_value_num to get that number and force the order how I want, and since this site isn't complicated, defining the order this way is convenient. I just use leading zeroes to make it easy: 001, 002, 003, etc
<?php
$args2 = array( 'post_type' => 'post',
'category_name' => 'video',
'posts_per_page' => 3,
'meta_key' => 'video_order',
'orderby' => 'meta_value_num',
'order' => 'ASC' );
$query2 = new WP_Query($args2);
while ( $query2->have_posts() ) {
$query2->the_post();
?>
Anyway, hope this helps if you need to use multiple loops to pull posts from different categories.