Making a certain product category not appear in the menu...

I'm trying to create a special category that I can put products into without it showing up on the main menu.

The idea being we could have products linked to a second category with qty discounts on them. Then we could change one of the images on our homepage image slider to be appropriate and link it to the hidden category which would then show them the qty discounted items.

I found a plugin that apparently does it (called Hide Category) however it's for Zen Cart v1.3.9.

Does anyone know of any ways to achieve this?

Question: why are you wanting to hide available discounts from your customers?
Why not just draw attention to the discounts, since that would incentivize them to purchase, and probably buy more. Go out of your way to show them how they can save money by buying at your site, and that will encourage them to stay.
Why hide it away somewhere that's harder for them to find?
Remember that unless your customers are always coming first to your home page, they'll never see that slider you're talking about.

If you really want to proceed with hiding things, then the hideCategories plugin might be of interest.

Hi DrByte!

Your answers throughout this forum have helped me accomplish many things with setting up this website...

So for that and for helping here I'd just like to say thanks... :)

As for your reply, we're wanting to hide it away as we already have a specials category in the menu for our usual specials. However the qty discount specials are something that we only want to run occasionally and thus we just want to have the image on the homepage in the image slider whenever it's available... Rather than it messing with the menu...

Also you have very valid points regarding the fact that customers have to come to the front page to see the specials... However we've set up our site so that there's a whole bunch of stuff that's worthwhile for them to see on the homepage. Plus I don't get much of a say at this point in development, it's more whatever the boss says I change. However maybe as well as making it a imageslider image I could also put it in a sidebox to be displayed on each page or something...

As for the hideCategories plugin, would that work with v 1.5.0 considering the latest release for the plugin is 1.3.8?

You might first try disabling the Category and then see how things work for you ...

Then, if you need more control, try the hideCategories for v1.3.9, you will need to merge the files carefully as they are written for v1.3.9 but could be adapted for v1.5+ ...