Is there a way to make the WP Catalogue Secure?

Hey that’s a very good question Mike. Unfortunately because of the way WP Catalogue is built (on a custom post type), there is not a simple way to make it ‘private’ without doing a bit of code work.

Check out this post on Stack Exchange which should point you in the right direction for password protecting custom post types.

Alternatively, try using the snippet below in your functions.php to force the WP Catalogue post type to be private.

function force_type_private($post)
{
    if ($post['post_type'] == 'wpcproduct')
    $post['post_status'] = 'private';
    return $post;
}
add_filter('wp_insert_post_data', 'force_type_private');

Note that “Private” visibility setting in WordPress means the page is visible to logged in administrator and editor user roles. If you wanted ‘private’ to allow a lower user role, eg ‘Subscribers’, then you can add that capability like so (again, in the functions.php file):

$subRole = get_role( 'subscriber' );
$subRole->add_cap( 'read_private_pages' );

—

I haven’t tested any of that but in theory it should work! ?? Let me know how you go.

Cheers,
Maeve