Exclude category from main RSS feed, but not all feeds

Question

I've got a blog that supplies content to multiple MailChimp newsletters via RSS. The first newsletter works fine, but the second I'm having issues with. The issue I have is that the second newsletter has "hidden" content. This content isn't meant for wide consumption, so it doesn't appear on the frontpage, but is accessible elsewhere on the site. The snafu with this is that not all of this content is hidden, just some of it, while other pieces of content for this newsletter could overlap with the first newsletter. This obviously makes excluding everything problematic, as they could be assigned multiple categories, some of which I wouldn't want hidden.

The issue I'm running into is that I have a way to exclude this content from the frontpage, but not from the main RSS feed. I'm using WP Hide Post for this, which allows me to exclude from feed, which in turn removes it from all feeds, including the ones that feed the newsletter. I'm currently using /feed?cat=XXX to reference these feeds. Is there a way to make it so category feeds still work, just the main /feed RSS would exclude it?

Answer 1

I ended up having to rethink this problem from another angle. Instead of being able to exclude posts from the main feed, I had to create unique feeds for each of my categories. This made it so these feeds were independent of the main feed and wouldn't be affected by the WP Hide Posts plugin.

What I did was drop this file into my theme folder, then create blank pages with this template assigned to it. At the top I have it handling each page I created and assigning it to the corresponding category.

<?php 
/* 
Template Name: Custom feeds
*/
$numposts = 10; // number of posts in feed

if ( is_page( 'custom-feed-1' )) {    
    $posts = query_posts('showposts='.$numposts.'&cat=1'); 
} elseif ( is_page( 'custom-feed-2' )) {  
    $posts = query_posts('showposts='.$numposts.'&cat=2');  
} elseif ( is_page( 'custom-feed-3' )) {  
    $posts = query_posts('showposts='.$numposts.'&cat=3'); 
}

$more = 1;

header('Content-Type: '.feed_content_type('rss-http').'; charset='.get_option('blog_charset'), true);
echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="'.get_option('blog_charset').'"?'.'>';
?>

<rss version="2.0"
  xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
  xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
  xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
  xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
  xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
  xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
  xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/">

<channel>
  <title><?php bloginfo_rss('name'); wp_title_rss(); ?> - Article Feed</title>
  <atom:link href="<?php self_link(); ?>" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
  <link><?php bloginfo_rss('url') ?></link>
  <description><?php bloginfo_rss("description") ?></description>
  <lastBuildDate><?php echo mysql2date('D, d M Y H:i:s +0000', get_lastpostmodified('GMT'), false); ?></lastBuildDate>
  <?php the_generator( 'rss2' ); ?>
  <language>en-US</language>
  <sy:updatePeriod><?php echo apply_filters( 'rss_update_period', 'hourly' ); ?></sy:updatePeriod>
  <sy:updateFrequency><?php echo apply_filters( 'rss_update_frequency', '1' ); ?></sy:updateFrequency>
  <?php do_action('rss2_head'); ?>
  <?php while( have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

  <item>
    <title><?php the_title_rss(); ?></title>
    <link><?php the_permalink_rss(); ?></link>
    <comments><?php comments_link(); ?></comments>
    <pubDate><?php echo mysql2date('D, d M Y H:i:s +0000', get_post_time('Y-m-d H:i:s', true), false); ?></pubDate>
    <dc:creator><?php the_author(); ?></dc:creator>
<?php the_category_rss(); ?>
    <guid isPermaLink="false"><?php the_guid(); ?></guid>
<?php if (get_option('rss_use_excerpt')) : ?>
    <description><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></description>
<?php else : ?>
    <description><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></description>
  <?php if ( strlen( $post->post_content ) > 0 ) : ?> 
    <content:encoded><![CDATA[<?php the_content() ?>]]></content:encoded>
  <?php else : ?>
    <content:encoded><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></content:encoded>
  <?php endif; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

<?php do_action('rss2_item'); ?>

  </item>
  <?php endwhile; ?>

</channel>
</rss>

Also I don't wish to lay claim to this template, I found it online awhile back and modified it a bit, I just can't remember where I came across it.