Excluding categories from home.php in Wordpress

[Matt]

I am using the following code in home.php, above the loop to exclude posts from the home loop if in a certain category

I have two problems :-

- when using this piece of code my pagnation no longer works. It changes the URL but seems to just start the loop again
- If a post is in two categories, and one is the excluded category, it wont show. Is there a way to say only exclude if it is only in the specified category.

Code:

<?php
if (is_home()) {
query_posts("cat=-176");
}
?>

Thanks in advance

[sarahA]

http://www.dynamicwp.net/articles-and-tutorials/pagination-problem-when-excluding-certain-category-from-blog-main-page/ for the pagination issue

You could try the different styles of exclusion for categories on the WP_Query page, maybe one of those will do what you need - http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query#Category_Parameters

Possibly the category__not_in

Alternatively, if it's straightforward enough to do (ie. those who write posts to be excluded can grasp the method), why not tag the post or give it a custom field that you then use to exclude from the front page?

[robthedog]

To sort your paging try:

Code:

<?php
$args=array(
'cat'=> -176,
'paged'=> get_query_var('paged')
);

query_posts($args);
?>

As for the first problem, could you not have a 'featured' category or tag to determine if the post is displayed, rather than excluding a category?

[Matt]

To sort your paging try:

Code:

<?php
$args=array(
'cat'=> -176,
'paged'=> get_query_var('paged')
);

query_posts($args);
?>

As for the first problem, could you not have a 'featured' category or tag to determine if the post is displayed, rather than excluding a category?

Thanks Rob, that worked like a charm. Brilliant Stuff.

[robthedog]

No probs, glad to be able to help