How to Temporarily Hide Categories in WooCommerce: A Comprehensive Guide
Introduction:
WooCommerce is a powerhouse when it comes to building and managing online stores. Sometimes, you might need to temporarily hide categories from your shop. Perhaps you’re prepping new products within a category, running a limited-time promotion exclusive to specific users, or simply tidying up your shopfront. This article explores several methods to achieve this in WooCommerce, allowing you to control which categories are visible to your customers, ensuring a polished and relevant shopping experience. We’ll cover different techniques, from simple settings adjustments to using code snippets, empowering you to choose the method that best suits your technical skills and specific needs.
Why Hide Categories Temporarily?
Before we dive into the “how,” let’s briefly consider *why* you’d want to hide categories:
- Product Preparation: Hiding a category while adding or updating products prevents customers from seeing incomplete or inaccurate information.
- Promotional Campaigns: Creating exclusive categories visible only to specific user groups or during certain time periods.
- Seasonal Products: Hiding out-of-season categories to streamline the customer’s browsing experience.
- Maintenance and Updates: Hiding categories undergoing maintenance or significant changes.
- A/B Testing: Presenting different category configurations to different user groups to optimize conversions.
- Navigate to Products > Categories in your WordPress admin panel.
- Hover over the category you want to hide and click “Edit.”
- In the category edit page, find the “Visibility” setting.
- Change the visibility to “Hidden”. This will hide it from the Shop page, category archives and search results.
- Click “Update” to save your changes.
- Role-based Visibility: Show categories to specific user roles (e.g., only administrators).
- Date-based Visibility: Schedule categories to appear or disappear at specific times.
- Conditional Logic: Hide categories based on user location, device, or other criteria.
- Product Visibility by User Role for WooCommerce: Great for restricting access to certain user roles.
- WooCommerce Category Visibility Options: Offers flexible control over category visibility, including hiding empty categories.
- Conditional Products and Categories for WooCommerce: Allows you to set visibility conditions based on various factors.
Main Part: Methods for Temporarily Hiding WooCommerce Categories
Here are several methods you can use to temporarily hide categories in WooCommerce.
1. Using WooCommerce Category Visibility Settings
The simplest method involves using the built-in visibility settings within WooCommerce itself.
Limitations:
This method hides the category *entirely* from the storefront, which might not be suitable if you want specific users (like administrators) to still access it.
Also the categories can still be accessible if the user knows the url.
2. Using Plugins
Several plugins offer more advanced control over category visibility. These plugins provide features like:
Some popular plugins include:
Installing and configuring these plugins is straightforward. Refer to the plugin documentation for specific instructions.
3. Using Custom Code (Functions.php or a Code Snippet Plugin)
For more granular control, you can use custom code snippets. This method involves adding PHP code to your theme’s `functions.php` file (use a child theme to prevent losing changes during theme updates) or using a code snippet plugin like “Code Snippets.”
a) Hiding Categories from the Shop Page:
This snippet removes categories from the main shop page.
add_filter( 'get_terms', 'hide_woocommerce_categories', 10, 3 ); function hide_woocommerce_categories( $terms, $taxonomies, $args ) { $taxonomy = 'product_cat'; $categories_to_hide = array( 'category-slug-1', 'category-slug-2' ); // Replace with your category Discover insights on How To Change The Email Colors In Woocommerce slugs
if ( !is_admin() && is_shop() && in_array( $taxonomy, $taxonomies ) ) {
$new_terms = array();
foreach ( $terms as $term ) {
if ( ! in_array( $term->slug, $categories_to_hide ) ) {
$new_terms[] = $term;
}
}
return $new_terms;
}
return $terms;
}
Explanation:
- This code hooks into the `get_terms` filter, which is used to retrieve taxonomy terms (including categories).
- It checks if the current page is not the admin area and if the current page is the shop page.
- It checks if the taxonomy is `product_cat` (WooCommerce Explore this article on How To Refund A Woocommerce Order product categories).
- It defines an array `$categories_to_hide` containing the slugs of the categories you want to hide. Remember to replace the placeholders with the actual slugs of your categories! You can find a category’s slug by editing the category and looking at the URL or the permalink setting.
- It iterates through the retrieved terms and adds only the terms whose slugs are *not* in the `$categories_to_hide` array to a new array.
- Finally, it returns the filtered array of terms.
b) Hiding Categories Explore this article on How To Edit Woocommerce With Elementor from the Category Widget:
This snippet prevents specified categories from appearing in the WooCommerce category widget:
add_filter( 'woocommerce_product_categories_widget_args', 'hide_categories_widget' ); function hide_categories_widget( $args ) { $args['exclude'] = array( term_exists( 'category-slug-1', 'product_cat' )['term_id'], term_exists( 'category-slug-2', 'product_cat' )['term_id'] ); // Replace with your category slugs return $args; }
Explanation:
- This code hooks into `woocommerce_product_categories_widget_args`, a filter used to modify the arguments passed to the category widget.
- It uses `term_exists` to retrieve the Term ID for the given slugs.
- It then excludes those ID’s from the widget.
Important Considerations When Using Code:
- Use a Child Theme: Always add custom code to a child theme’s `functions.php` file. This prevents your changes from being overwritten when you update your main theme.
- Testing: Thoroughly test any code snippets you add to your site.
- Backups: Back up your website before making any changes to the `functions.php` file.
- Category Slugs: Ensure you use the correct category slugs in the code. The slug is the URL-friendly version of the category name.
Conclusion:
Temporarily hiding categories in WooCommerce is a valuable technique for managing your online store effectively. Whether you choose to utilize WooCommerce’s built-in settings, install a dedicated plugin, or implement custom code snippets, the methods outlined in this article offer flexibility and control. Remember to carefully consider your specific needs and technical expertise when selecting the appropriate method. Properly managing category visibility leads to a more streamlined and professional shopping experience for your customers, ultimately boosting your sales and customer satisfaction.
