query_var of hidden custom taxonomy not set to default

Hi distict, please allow me a more generic question – is there a special reason why you’re using query_posts() instead of get_posts(), WP_Query or the pre_get_posts hook? According to Codex, using query_posts() directly is quite strongly discouraged.

I agree that we should use WP_Query, but this was code build by someone else that we now maintain. Anyway, WP_Query is not really any different from query_posts with regards to query_vars as far as I know. So that has nothing to do with this problem.

I think I have a better understanding of the problem now. The label of the ‘public’ parameter to register_taxonomy has some conflicts between what WordPress will do and what your plugin mentions (or at least the Dutch translation). It says that a non public taxonomy will be hidden from the admin. But this is not really the meaning of public according to the codex. It is whether the taxonomy will be publicly queryable.
Setting this to false while expecting your description (only hide it) will therefor also disable the query var.

The behavior we want would therefor be leaving public to true and setting show_ui and other flags to false. This leaves the taxonomy queryable, but hides it from admins.

So maybe you should change the label for the ‘public’ setting?

Thank you a lot distinct! You are right and we’re going to review this.