Hide-Protected WordPress Plugin

With this WordPress plugin you can hide any password-protected posts from:

• front page
• feed
• category list
• archive

Only a direct URL to the post will allow you to see it. You still need to enter a password, as the post is a protected one.

Why would I need it?

If you want a lightweight way to “peer review” your posts, you can use this plugin.

How do I use it?

Let’s say you’ve written a post (not published yet, i.e. status is Draft), and want to peer review it.

First, make sure the plugin is activated. Then, set a password to the post, and publish it.

Now the post is live, but not seen unless you know the exact URL (and the password). Next, you send the URL + password to the reviewer(s). They visit the URL, review it and give you feedback. You fix the post, and inform them about new version. Then the review process is repeated until the post is deemed good enough.

Now you can remove the password, and the post will be displayed. When peer reviewing is done, the post is only available to your chosen subset of any people who know:

• the URL to the post
• the password

I’m still not convinced…

Using this plugin, you don’t need to create user roles within WordPress for the reviewers. It’s a much more lightweight process and more suited for ad-hoc peer-reviews.

You do not have to administer extra users. Plus, it’s much more easier for the reviewers.

When would I not want to use it?

If you want password-protected posts to be visible everywhere, you should not use this plugin.

OK, sounds great but what applications does this have?

Think of scientific publishing – each published article undergoes a review process and the group of potential reviewers can be large and is not pre-defined.

Simply put, any area where you must get a trusted set of eyeballs to offer improvements to your article before unleashing it to the world… there you can find use for this plugin.

Of course you could do this somehow by creating users in WordPress for all reviewers. However, if you have multiple articles in the queue and not the same people review those, then it can become a bit hairy. This plugin offers a more lightweight solution and you can have any number of articles in the queue along with fully or partly different group of reviewers for each article.

Notes

The URL to post you can see by choosing Manage/Posts and then choosing “View” for that post.

When you remove the password (i.e. make the post visible), be sure to change the timestamp if you want the peer-reviewed post to appear in the future (instead of the past at the time when you first created it).

Download latest version

Thanks to Eric, now also hiding in search results.

Download Hide-Protected version 1.1.

Older versions

Download Hide-Protected version 1.0.