So I received an email that I cannot reply to from @Movin. Thank you for that but I’m confused as to why I don’t see the answer here. Anyway, the answer is below. Two issues. I do prefer the page solution but I received errors and also do not see an area to write customized fields. I cannot copy this code as is as an alternate solution for obvious reasons. Could you please repost here? Thanks.
@oneillg You can try achieving this by using the attached modified plugin that contains following code but please note if the user accesses post URL directly in the browser then the user can access the post.
function exclude_category( $query ) {
if( of_get_option( 'sparkling_slider_checkbox' ) == 1 && !is_admin() && $query->is_main_query() ){
$slidecat = of_get_option( 'sparkling_slide_categories' );
$query->set( 'cat', '-'.$slidecat );
}
}
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'exclude_category' );
You can also use pages for the slider instead of posts by using the solution posted in the following topic.