Title: Category Visibility Plugin – Fixed a bug
Last modified: August 18, 2016

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# Category Visibility Plugin – Fixed a bug

 *  [iamPariah](https://wordpress.org/support/users/iampariah/)
 * (@iampariah)
 * [20 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/category-visibility-plugin-fixed-a-bug/)
 * I discovered (and fixed) a show-stopper bug in Keith McDuffee’s otherwise excellent
   Category Visibility plugin ([http://www.gudlyf.com/archives/2005/03/08/wordpress-plugin-category-visibility/](http://www.gudlyf.com/archives/2005/03/08/wordpress-plugin-category-visibility/)).
 * ——————
    BUG DESCRIPTION: Creating a new category or subcategory leaves the catvis_user_level
   blank, resulting in no one being able to see the category or its posts.
 * In lay language, Category Visibility includes on its Manage page a “user level”
   field for every category and subcategory. Only users at or above that user level(
   WP 1.5x user levels) can see the category or posts within it. Setting the field
   to 0 allows all everyone (including non-registered users) to see them. Leaving
   the field blank, however, means the cateogry and its contents are invisible to
   everyone of any user level (including the admin at level 10).
 * When creating a new category, Category Visibility defaults to leaving the category
   visibility user level field blank. Thus, for every new category, someone (with
   adequate permissions) has to go manually change that on the Category Visibility
   Manage page.
 * ——————
    RESOLUTION: Replace a line in the Category Visibility Plugin (category_visibility.
   php) code. (Don’t get squeamish! This is easy!)
 * Open category_visibility.php in a text editor and locate line #106, which is 
   this code:
 * $catvis_user_level = $catvis->user_level;
 * Now replace that entire line with this:
 * if ($catvis->user_level == ” ) $catvis_user_level = “0”; else $catvis_user_level
   = $catvis->user_level;
 * ——————
    WHAT’S IT DOING: (I SWEAR I am NOT a programmer!) As Keith wrote the 
   original code, the field $catvis_user_level is being told to look up the value
   of field $catvis->user_level. When $catvis->user_level already has a value (meaning
   you went in and set a user level for that category), everything works fine; the
   value you set merely gets shown again as you set it. But, when you create new
   categories, $catvis->user_level starts out blank. Thus $catvis_user_level also
   becomes blank, making all newly created categories totally invisible at creation
   time.
 * There’s error-checking built into Keith’s script such that, if user_level is 
   blank, it should be set to 0 automatically. Unfortunately, that’s failing for
   some reason (at least it is on my four WP installs).
 * In the corrected code, $catvis_user_level also looks up the value of $catvis-
   >user_level, using whatever value is there. BUT, if $catvis->user_level happens
   to be blank, then $catvis_user_level sets itself to (visible to user level) 0(
   and above). The result is that newly created categories are visible to everyone
   by default instead of INvisible to everyone by default.
 * ——————
    VARIANT: If your needs differ–say, you want newly created categories 
   to be visible only to users level 4 and above–just change $catvis_user_level 
   = “0” to $catvis_user_level = “4” or whatever you need.
 * ASIDE: I apologize to the PHP-literate for my verbosity above. I recognize that
   I could have simply posted the original and replacement code without explanation.
   However, many WP users don’t understand the typical “replace ‘this’ with ‘this'”
   help often found in this forum (I know I didn’t when I was first trying to figure
   out all of this PHP stuff). More to the point, I always like to give people the
   courtesy of explaining WHY to choose to do something rather than just HOW.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  [geetarista](https://wordpress.org/support/users/geetarista/)
 * (@geetarista)
 * [20 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/category-visibility-plugin-fixed-a-bug/#post-309655)
 * That still doesn’t work for me. I have to go into Manage->Category Visibility
   and click on Submit Changes to make it work. It does put the 0 in there, but 
   it doesn’t update the database it seems. Is there something else I’m missing?
 *  [funkytown23](https://wordpress.org/support/users/funkytown23/)
 * (@funkytown23)
 * [20 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/category-visibility-plugin-fixed-a-bug/#post-309905)
 * Yeah.. I’ve tried this multiple times and the Category Visibility doesn’t work.
 * Installed totally fine, but when unchecking front it removes it from everywhere
   including that category and i’m unable to search the item.
 * Im sure others have had problems
 * i’m using .31 version on wordpress 2.0
 * Kenny
 *  [funkytown23](https://wordpress.org/support/users/funkytown23/)
 * (@funkytown23)
 * [20 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/category-visibility-plugin-fixed-a-bug/#post-309906)
 * for anyone else.. here is the fix
 * [http://tova.fena.se/2005/06/11/category-visibility/](http://tova.fena.se/2005/06/11/category-visibility/)
 *  [funkytown23](https://wordpress.org/support/users/funkytown23/)
 * (@funkytown23)
 * [20 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/category-visibility-plugin-fixed-a-bug/#post-309907)
 * ^^
    Works fine within firefox but we’re having some problems with this within
   ie
 *  [funkytown23](https://wordpress.org/support/users/funkytown23/)
 * (@funkytown23)
 * [20 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/category-visibility-plugin-fixed-a-bug/#post-309908)
 * Sorry to post soo many times within this thread but i don’t see an edit or delete
   function.
 * I had users set at 0… this needs to be set at -1
 *  [Marcomail](https://wordpress.org/support/users/marcomail/)
 * (@marcomail)
 * [20 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/category-visibility-plugin-fixed-a-bug/#post-309950)
 * I can’t see the category list in my homepage…this is the function:
 * <div id=”box”>
    -  <?php wp_list_cats(‘sort_column=id&optioncount=1’); ?>
 * </div>
 * it’s not in the sidebar

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

The topic ‘Category Visibility Plugin – Fixed a bug’ is closed to new replies.

 * 6 replies
 * 4 participants
 * Last reply from: [Marcomail](https://wordpress.org/support/users/marcomail/)
 * Last activity: [20 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/category-visibility-plugin-fixed-a-bug/#post-309950)
 * Status: not a support question

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