Did you check if the universal item list widget (instead of linkblog widget) has an option for disabling links on categories?

I finally got back to this one. I've set up the same link blog using the Universal Item List widget, but have had no success in turning off the category URL. Unless I've quite badly misunderstood the options in there, there isn't an option for that specific piece of functionality.

Is there any chance that could be built into the widget (or the LinkBlog widget)?

@chris_of_arabia please, let me confirm. What do you want is to be able to disable links in the chapters/categories titles, right?

Like in the screenshot below.

@mgsolipa yes, that's it exactly. I want to be able to stop people going into the link blog itself, as it leaves them stranded their with no way back to my main blog.

@chris_of_arabia please consider this request is on discussion in order to determine if it will be merged to the standard package. However, you may apply a workaorund to add a new parameter to the widget and control whether or not to add links to the categories.

These are the changes you would need to apply to the file inc/widgets/widgets/_coll_item_list.widget.php:

https://github.com/mgsolipa/b2evolution/commit/1dee45c9fd237eb440325c1b0c09c9831deb37ac#diff-c0b8c611ebbee12ec8a19d56b05d14c2
https://github.com/mgsolipa/b2evolution/commit/546bb57d7fc85ac4604df8f44645f7b72e17c912#diff-c0b8c611ebbee12ec8a19d56b05d14c2

If you prefer, this is a direct link to the whole file:
https://github.com/mgsolipa/b2evolution/blob/chapters-link-item-list-widget/inc/widgets/widgets/_coll_item_list.widget.php

You can just replace your current code with that (if you're running version 6.6.x).

In the screenshot below you will see where is the new parameter located.

Regards!

Thanks for that @mgsolipa, that does exactly what I wanted it to do. Hopefully that can go into 'core' at a convenient point for you.