UPDATE : Richard Hamilton has begun developing the plugin again and has a beta for 2.8.x available
I was using Category Visibility plugin created by Rich Hamilton – Run Your Own Website. When he ended support for WordPress v. 2.3.x. I then started work on fixing the patched version offered by Projekt Seven, formerly www.tastycornbread.com, who had took the work done by Rich and made the List functionality operable. When his site disappeared I decided to make my improvements available to the world. Enjoy!!
The main purpose of this plugin, as I see it, is to give more control over what categories are seen and where. It is highly usefully in using WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System.) Especially if a non-technical person is doing the content management. It works wonders in tandem with the Event Calendar plugin.
Unchecking “Front” and “List” keeps the calendar posts off the home page, and the listing off the sidebar. Since the event calendar is already in the sidebar this would just be a duplication of content.
This version was created with WordPress 2.3 specifically in mind. If using previous version please visit my predecessors Category Visibility (Keith McDuffee) which was written for WordPress 1.5 and ‘Category Visibility’ Plugin for WordPress 2.0.x (Rich Hamilton).
Instructions
- Simply download and unzip it.
- Put it in your plugins directory.
- Activate it.
- Go to “Manage (Posts, 2.7),” “Category Visibility” to see the visibility settings for all categories. the options are
- Front: Posts show up on the main (home) page.
- List: Categories that will show up in the List of categories in the sidebar.
- Search: Posts show up in search results.
- Feed: Posts show up in the main RSS/Atom feed.
- Archive: Posts show up in archive links (i.e., clicking on the calendar links)
Everything is checked to show up by default.
When you have a category to exclude from the front page, or the sidebar, etc., go to “Manage,” “Category Visibility,” and unselect the areas where you want the category to disappear.
This method is not designed as a security device, only as a display method. A guest can still access a post by post number.
Download
Latest version, WP 2.3.x: Ver. 1.0.8.
Fixes:
- 2.7 compatibility
Working on for version 2:
- Separate Link, Post, and Tag Administration
- WP 2.5 2.7 adaptation
- Creating Tags administration to work in tandem with WikiLinks plugin
- Add security element in tandem with WpDirAuth plugin
Bug –
if a post has more than one visible category, the post is displayed again per category.
Hard to explain look at my site http://geekthug.com
You rock the house my man.
Since you updated it, it works like a charm.
Great plugin, exactly what I was looking for. The only problem is that when activated my WordPress Search function stops returning results. Any ideas?
Running 2.3.3
I really love you, guy, seems the former edition is fantastic, you made it perfect!
Oh, me again, report a bug, when I take one cat. off from list option, just the name is disappear, but the sign is still there, you can check the sidebar of http://www.colorfulmar.com don’t know why…
great plugin, however as someone has already said above the search function stops returning results with this plugin activated.
I would love to see this working. I get the search error too, in fact it delivers a pretty verbose error where my search results should be. i can supply the code if need be.
WordPress and Plugin Versions? Other plugins you are using?
This plugin is exactly what I need! Unfortunately it doesn’t work for me 🙁 upon activating it, whenever I visit my blog posts page (which is at http://www.hellocatfood.com/blog) it tells me the page doesn’t exist. I’m using WordPress 2.3.2 (will update soon!) and using the following plugins: NAVT, Wp Lightbox 2, WPG2 (wordpress gallery2), wp-cache, WP Database backup, WP.com Stats, Subscribe to comments, Share This, Role Manager, Quick Post, No Self Pings, Google XML Sitemap, Feedburner, EasyTube, EasyGravatars and Akismet. Man, that’s a long list! Thanks for your help!
Just updated to the latest wordpress (not version 2.5) and with only this plugin activated it doesn’t work, even with the blog as the main page.
I’m on 2.3.3 and it’s not working for me either.
Just tested plugin with 2.5 seems to work alright, still needs a more rigorous trial though which I am sure you will all do. Let me know if you run into any bugs. In the mean time I will continue to work on version 2 and I hope to build the admin function into the separate link, post, and tag sections.
I’m running 2.5. At first I thought no problems at all, but it appears that when I search my blog I get the same results show up multiple times.
The first result shows up twice, the second result shows up three times.
It’s definitely related to this plugin as the problem goes away upon deactivation of the plugin.
Keep up the great work you’re doing with the plugin!
Even with the above mentioned error, I’m keeping it active as this is such a helpful plugin.
thanks for this wonderful plugin. one thing though, i got one category that has an apostrophe in it and it won’t show up, so thinking that must be the cause, i removed the apostrophe and it got listed on the sidebar as usual. 🙂
sorry, another thing i just noticed is that a few category parent became the child of a child category above it.
if you look at my site, “Manpower Agency Status” must be aligned with “Hiring Agency Online Presence” they are both parent categories.
oh, so far i haven’t encountered the search thing problem…
Thanks, Very busy right now but I’ll look into it. Good the search issue should have been fixed with my last release.
thanks for the quick response. to solve the hierarchy concern, i change the parents name since that’s ok with me though i suppose in most cases people might have reservations in doing that.
again, i think the case happened because initially my parent category name was “Hiring Agency’s Online Presence.” since the name won’t appear, i removed the apostrophe, afterwards all parent category succeeding that title got indented. hope this info helps.
i had just upgraded to WP 2.5.1 Whenever i visit my own domain it shows a 404, so i had to deactivate this plugin. i hope you update this one soon. 🙂
As les noted, this does *not* work with WordPress 2.5.1 – it forces a 404 page on the home page. Additionally the Category Visibility administration page generates check boxes for *every* single tag, which is annoying.
Please, somebody update this great plugin so it can work with WordPress 2.5.1
Any idea when this will work for WordPress 2.5.1? It’s a great plugin, but right now I’m getting:
“Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.” on my front page.
“Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.”, This is the results message in the new version 2.5.1…
This plugin does not work with WP Version 2.5.1. Great plugin hope to see an update soon.
Same problem over here with WP 2.5.1
How frustrating, I just wish WP developers would include a category manager instead of messing up with WP its UI too much.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you
Hello, and thanks a lot for your Category Visibility plug-in.
Unfortunately, there’s an incompatibility with the AStickyPostOrderER plugin by Pixel Plexus ( http://pixelplexus.co.za/blog/2007/11/20/plugin-to-change-wordpress-post-order/ ).
When they’re both activated, the front page is empty (“Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.” )
When they’re activated individually, everything is normal.
The problem is that I need both functionalities…
My site runs WP 2.5.1
Would you have any hint as how to fix that? Thanks in advance.
(I’ve posted a similar message in the other plug-in’s comments)
Thank you for the plugin 😉
I am using WP 2.5.1 and your plugin works fine.
Problems others face must be caused by something other than your plugin.
Hi!
Any way the next “fix” can remove all the Tags from the List, and restrict itself to Categories?
Would be great!
Just realized that this doesn’t work for me in 2.5.1… all the categories remain in the List (a.k.a. Sidebar widget).
Help!
Thanks
I am experiencing the same phenom as Lionel Chollet: ” there’s an incompatibility with the AStickyPostOrderER plugin by Pixel Plexus ( http://pixelplexus.co.za/blog/2007/11/20/plugin-to-change-wordpress-post-order/ ).
When they’re both activated, the front page is empty (”Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.” )
When they’re activated individually, everything is normal.”
It would be great to be able to use them both. At the moment, I am using just your visibility plugin. I could get away from using ‘pages’ if they worked together.
Thanks for a great product!
-Rick
The plugin works fine in 2.5.1, indeed. Except not with AStickyPostOrderer 😉
As a side note, I’ve just tried “Post Groups” — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/postgroups/ –, and a similar issue occurs…
But of the three plugins, it’s Category Visibility that I kept activated, as its functionality was more important.
Hi! Thank you for great plugin!
But can’t test it on my 2.5.1, ‘coz in “Manage – Category Visibility” I have a big, long list of all categories and tags (up to 1000+), so page won’t load complete and it stuck on half and there is no “Save” button.
Maybe It’s a good idea to improve UI for this plugin.
Thank you!
Waiting your updates!
thanks for the update. i can now use it with WP 2.5.1
feedback for WP 2.6: a category got indented, it became a child category when it should have been a parent, but so far all i’ve noticed.
BUG – I have installed and configured your plugin and it works perfectly hidding a category from unregistred users, problem is if you try to access directly a post of a hidden category you are able to do it without login.
Can u help?
http://www.site.domain/category is protected OK
http://www.site.domain/category/post1 is not protected
RJ – Actually this isn’t a bug but outside of the focus of this plugin. This plugin is intended for CMS and Design not Security
Why does it show on the Admin screen all the post Tags as Categories? Shouldn’t it only show the actual categories? Instead when I go to manage it is showing me all the post tags I have as categories as well.
Is there a similar plugin for ‘Pages’, as i need to remove some pages from the sidebar.
cheers
dan
Daniel don’t know if he is keeping it up to date but Simply Exclude is a similar plugin to mine. That does handle pages. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simply-exclude/
But you can easily exclude Pages from the Pages Widgets with no plugin at all.
I am working on a version for 2.7 that splits out the categories I am hoping to release my 2.0 beta mid November version 1.0.8 will be release today for 2.7 compatibility