Hide section* from sidebar

Question

I'm creating a beamer presentation but I have an unsolved problem: I wanted Introduction and Conclusion sections before and after the core of my presentation. I wanted them unnumbered (\section*} but they still appear on the sidebar and take 2 lines on each frame...

I have also tried \section*[]{} that displays a "[" in the sidebar...

Edit: The structure of the document:

\documentclass[handout]{beamer}

\usetheme{Warsaw}

\begin{document}

    \begin{frame}
        \titlepage
    \end{frame}

    \section*{Introduction}

    \begin{frame}{Introduction}

    \end{frame}

    \begin{frame}{Outline}
        \tableofcontents[pausesections]
    \end{frame}

    \section{Context}
    % Slides of Context section
    \section{Development}
    % Slides of Development section
    \section{Results}
    % Slides of Development section

    \section*{Conclusion}

    \begin{frame}{Conclusion}

    \end{frame}

\end{document}

The idea is hide the Introduction and Conclusion sections from the side bar

Thanks for your help

Answer 1

This problem is two-folded:

1) removing the introduction is already covered in alwaysasks answer, just don't use any section \section{} which will not show up in the headline.

2) With the conclusion it is a bit different. If you don't use a section, it will automatically be part of the previous section. To prevent this, you can place an empty section \section{}

\documentclass[handout]{beamer}

\usetheme{Warsaw}

\begin{document}

    \begin{frame}
        \titlepage
    \end{frame}

    \begin{frame}{Introduction}

    \end{frame}

    \begin{frame}{Outline}
        \tableofcontents[pausesections]
    \end{frame}

    \section{Context}
    % Slides of Context section
    \section{Development}
    % Slides of Development section
    \section{Results}
    \frame{}
    % Slides of Development section
        \section{}
    \begin{frame}{Conclusion}

    \end{frame}

\end{document}

---

EDIT 2018

The above solution no longer works with the current version of beamer, use the following code instead:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usetheme{Warsaw}

\makeatletter
\let\beamer@writeslidentry@miniframeson=\beamer@writeslidentry%
\def\beamer@writeslidentry@miniframesoff{%
  \expandafter\beamer@ifempty\expandafter{\beamer@framestartpage}{}% does not happen normally
  {%else
    % removed \addtocontents commands
    \clearpage\beamer@notesactions%
  }
}
\newcommand*{\miniframeson}{\let\beamer@writeslidentry=\beamer@writeslidentry@miniframeson}
\newcommand*{\miniframesoff}{\let\beamer@writeslidentry=\beamer@writeslidentry@miniframesoff}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

    \begin{frame}
        \titlepage
    \end{frame}

    \begin{frame}{Introduction}

    \end{frame}

    \begin{frame}{Outline}
        \tableofcontents[pausesections]
    \end{frame}

    \section{Context}
    % Slides of Context section
    \section{Development}
    % Slides of Development section
    \section{Results}
    \frame{}
    % Slides of Development section
    \miniframesoff
        \section{}
    \begin{frame}{Conclusion}

    \end{frame}

\end{document}

Answer 2

\section*{sec_name} prevents that section from appearing in the ToC, but it will still show in the Navigation Bar. If you don't want it in the Navigation Bar either, then simply don't use a \section command, just put the info in the frames.

\documentclass[handout]{beamer}

\usetheme{Warsaw}

\begin{document}

    \begin{frame}
        \titlepage
    \end{frame}

    %\section*{Introduction}

    \begin{frame}{Introduction}
        This is the intro
    \end{frame}

    \begin{frame}{Outline}
        \tableofcontents[pausesections]
    \end{frame}

    \section{Context}
    % Slides of Context section
    \section{Development}
    % Slides of Development section
    \section{Results}
    % Slides of Results section
    \begin{frame}{Results}
      This is the result.     
    \end{frame}

    %\section*{Conclusion}

    \begin{frame}{Conclusion}

    \end{frame}

\end{document}