Blog Template & excluding categories

[luba lee]

Hello all,

I wanted to exclude a category from the blog page, and I made it like this: going to theme config, blog template and puting the ID of the category I wanted excluded.

For some reason I don't get, it didn't work. I tried with the blog having the blog template, and without that template (default template), but nothing.

This is how it worked:

/** Exclude certain category from posts */
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'be_exclude_category_from_blog' );
function be_exclude_category_from_blog( $query ) {

if( $query->is_main_query() && $query->is_home() ) {
$query->set( 'cat', '-156' );
}
}

But I wanted to understand what exactly the blog template is for, and how come it didn't work from the configuration?

[Ren Ventura]

Try this:

https://gist.github.com/EngageWP/a4696c3c3ddb829bb42d#file-remove-categories-blog-index-php

---

Web & Software Developer & Blogger | RenVentura.com | Follow Me on Twitter @CLE_Ren

[luba lee]

Yes, thank you @Ren, that's a similar code, and it worked, but I wanted to know why it didn't work the other way, from the configuration 🙂

And I wanted to understand what exactly the blog template is for.

[Ren Ventura]

The reason it didn't work when you were using the blog template is because the blog template does not use the main query. Therefore, trying to customize the main query on the blog template won't work. Here's a helpful post from Bill Erickson that goes into detail.

http://www.billerickson.net/dont-use-genesis-blog-template/

---

Web & Software Developer & Blogger | RenVentura.com | Follow Me on Twitter @CLE_Ren

[luba lee]

Yes, I've read this post before (it's a bit tricky for me, maybe because english is not my mother tongue).

The thing is I tried it also without the blog template (using the default template), but didn't work either.

Thank you for being so patient, Ren 😉

[Ren Ventura]

You're welcome! You were using add_action when you should have been using add_filter since you were modifying the query.

---

Web & Software Developer & Blogger | RenVentura.com | Follow Me on Twitter @CLE_Ren

[luba lee]

Thank you, Ren. I'm reading the article all over again 🙂

[LoriSm]

This worked great for me thanks!!

[Author]

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