Thank you for writing in!

This isn’t a feature offered by X. However it could be possible with custom development. Because this requires a template change, I’d advise that you setup a child theme. This allows you to make code changes that won’t be overwritten when an X update is released. After your child theme is setup, please review how we recommend making template changes in Customization Best Practices.

After that, add the following code in your child theme’s functions.php file:

// Recent Posts - Adding "exclude_category" to recent_posts shortcode
// ================================================================================

function x_shortcode_recent_posts2( $atts ) {
	extract( shortcode_atts( array(
	  'id'                => '',
	  'class'             => '',
	  'style'             => '',
	  'type'              => '',
	  'count'             => '',
	  'category'          => '',
	  'exclude_category'  => '',
	  'offset'            => '',
	  'orientation'       => '',
	  'no_image'          => '',
	  'fade'              => ''
	), $atts ) );

	$id                  = ( $id          != ''          ) ? 'id="' . esc_attr( $id ) . '"' : '';
	$class               = ( $class       != ''          ) ? 'x-recent-posts cf ' . esc_attr( $class ) : 'x-recent-posts cf';
	$style               = ( $style       != ''          ) ? 'style="' . $style . '"' : '';
	$type                = ( $type        == 'portfolio' ) ? 'x-portfolio' : 'post';
	$count               = ( $count       != ''          ) ? $count : 3;
	$category            = ( $category    != ''          ) ? $category : '';
	$exclude_category    = ( $exclude_category    != ''  ) ? $exclude_category : '';
	$category_type       = ( $type        == 'post'      ) ? 'category_name' : 'portfolio-category';
	$offset              = ( $offset      != ''          ) ? $offset : 0;
	$orientation         = ( $orientation != ''          ) ? ' ' . $orientation : ' horizontal';
	$no_image            = ( $no_image    == 'true'      ) ? $no_image : '';
	$fade                = ( $fade        == 'true'      ) ? $fade : 'false';

	$output = "<div {$id} class=\"{$class}{$orientation}\" {$style} data-fade=\"{$fade}\">";

	  $q = new WP_Query( array(
	    'orderby'          => 'date',
	    'post_type'        => "{$type}",
	    'posts_per_page'   => "{$count}",
	    'offset'           => "{$offset}",
	    'cat'              => "{$exclude_category}",
	    "{$category_type}" => "{$category}"
	  ) );

	  if ( $q->have_posts() ) : while ( $q->have_posts() ) : $q->the_post();

	    if ( $no_image == 'true' ) {
	      $image_output       = '';
	      $image_output_class = 'no-image';
	    } else {
	      $image_output       = '<div class="x-recent-posts-img">' . get_the_post_thumbnail( get_the_ID(), 'entry-' . x_get_option( 'x_stack', 'integrity' ) . '-cropped', NULL ) . '</div>';
	      $image_output_class = 'with-image';
	    }

	    $output .= '<a class="x-recent-post' . $count . ' ' . $image_output_class . '" href="' . get_permalink( get_the_ID() ) . '" title="' . esc_attr( sprintf( __( 'Permalink to: "%s"', '__x__' ), the_title_attribute( 'echo=0' ) ) ) . '">'
	               . '<article id="post-' . get_the_ID() . '" class="' . implode( ' ', get_post_class() ) . '">'
	                 . '<div class="entry-wrap">'
	                   . $image_output
	                   . '<div class="x-recent-posts-content">'
	                     . '<h3 class="h-recent-posts">' . get_the_title() . '</h3>'
	                     . '<span class="x-recent-posts-date">' . get_the_date() . '</span>'
	                   . '</div>'
	                 . '</div>'
	               . '</article>'
	             . '</a>';

	  endwhile; endif; wp_reset_postdata();
	
	$output .= '</div>';

	return $output;
}

add_filter('init', function() {
	remove_shortcode( 'recent_posts' );

	add_shortcode( 'recent_posts', 'x_shortcode_recent_posts2' );
});

After that you need to add a new attribute to your recent posts shortcode, i.e. exclude_category=””. You can exclude multiple categories by adding the ID of the category with a minus “-” sign before it, and separate multiple categories with commas. Example:

// Single Category
[recent_posts type="post" count="4" orientation="horizontal" exclude_category="-21"]

// Multiple Categories
[recent_posts type="post" count="4" orientation="horizontal" exclude_category="-21, -20, -13, -15"]

To find out the “ID” of a category, just go to it’s edit page (see: http://prntscr.com/4o135o) and in the URL find tag_id variable (see: http://prntscr.com/4o13ty)

Hope this helps. 🙂

Thank you.

I just checked the code for parse error. And it doesn’t have any error. It could be that you replaced the entire code of your functions.php including the opening <?php from the first line. You should only append the given code at the end of your child theme’s functions.php

Thanks!

If still doesn’t work, you can provide us the login access of your site so we can check on your set-up

Thanks

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_FUNCTION in /public_html/home/wp-content/themes/x-child-integrity-light/functions.php on line 81

Line 81 is:

add_filter('init', function() {

I have not changed anything else in the code.

function change_shortcode()
{
	remove_shortcode( 'recent_posts' );
	add_shortcode( 'recent_posts', 'x_shortcode_recent_posts2' );

}

add_filter('init', 'change_shortcode');

Going to continue testing.