Featured Image Only Filter — WordPress Plugin

Automatically hides posts WITHOUT a featured image from Homepage, Category pages, Blog pages, and all archive pages. Auto-hides empty category sections. Works with ALL WordPress themes.

🚀 Features

• 🏠 Homepage & Blog Index — Show only image-rich posts on your front page
• 📂 Category Pages — Keep category archives clean and visual
• 🔗 Homepage Category Blocks — Also filters theme homepage grids & widgets (SmartMag, Newspaper, etc.)
• 🙈 Auto-Hide Empty Sections — If a category block becomes empty, the whole section disappears cleanly
• 🏷️ Tag / Author / Search / Date Archives — Optional filtering for all archive types
• ⚡ Performance — Filtering at DB query level — zero overhead
• 🎨 Theme Agnostic — Works with ANY WordPress theme

📦 Supported Themes

🔧 Installation

1. Download the plugin ZIP or clone this repository
2. Upload the featured-image-filter folder to /wp-content/plugins/
3. Activate the plugin from WordPress Admin → Plugins
4. Go to Settings → Featured Image Filter and configure your preferences

⚙️ Settings

Navigate to Settings → Featured Image Filter in your WordPress dashboard.

Page-Level Filters

Advanced Options

💡 How It Works

Posts WITH featured image    →  ✅ Shown normally
Posts WITHOUT featured image →  ❌ Hidden from selected pages
Empty category sections      →  🙈 Auto-hidden (smooth fade animation)
Single post/page views       →  ✅ Not affected

The plugin uses two strategies:

1. pre_get_posts hook — Modifies the main WordPress query to add a meta_query requiring _thumbnail_id to exist.
2. posts_where + posts_join SQL hooks — Filters sub-queries (theme blocks/widgets) at the SQL level.
3. Inline JavaScript DOM scanner — After page load, detects empty section containers and smoothly hides them.

📁 File Structure

featured-image-filter/
├── featured-image-filter.php   ← Main plugin file
├── assets/
│   └── css/
│       └── admin.css           ← Beautiful admin panel styles
└── readme.txt                  ← WordPress plugin readme

🛡️ Security

• All user inputs are sanitized before saving
• Uses current_user_can('manage_options') for admin access control
• No external API calls
• ABSPATH check prevents direct file access

📝 Changelog

v2.0.0

• ✨ NEW: Filter homepage category blocks (sub-queries / theme widgets)
• ✨ NEW: Auto-hide empty category sections with smooth animation
• ✨ NEW: Advanced settings card in admin panel
• ✨ NEW: Works with SmartMag, Newspaper, Jannah homepage blocks

v1.0.0

• 🎉 Initial release
• Filter support for: Homepage, Blog Index, Categories, Tags, Authors, Search, Date Archives
• Beautiful admin settings page with toggle switches

📄 License

GPL v2 or later — see LICENSE

Made with ❤️ by CodeStackLab