John R.

Hi wpdevart,

That’s great; gave you five stars 🙂

Alright, that explains a lot. I will fix the review related to the trialware issue; however, please change “The Croods” background as well as logo for new users. You can use a free image provider like is the case of pixabay or unsplash.

On response to comment:

How is this trialware? Removing functionality does not make a plugin trialware.

Hi Jan, the plugin is a trialware because section ‘a’ and ‘b’ from plugin guidelines:

According to section 5:

“Trialware is not allowed in the repository. It’s perfectly fine to attempt to upsell the user on other products and features, but a) not in an annoying manner and b) not by disabling functionality after some time period. Similarly, you cannot “cripple” functionality in the plugin and then ask for payment or provide a code to unlock the functionality. All code hosted by ww.wp.xz.cn servers must be free and fully-functional . If you want to sell advanced features for a plugin (such as a “pro” version), then you must sell and serve that code from your own site, we will not host it on our servers.”

To explain better, the plugin had features such as countdown, content alignment, social buttons, etc, before update 2.0.8. The WordPress community was using all those features for a long time. But, on update 2.0.8 the author locked down all those features asking for a paid upgrade to have them back without prior announcement; and, left the locked features on the admin interface to appeal users to buy them (Would be fine if the author upsell features to user; but, on this case the author took away functionalities used by the community already (“cripple”); and, forced them to upgrade at a charge to get them back – (b) Trialware). Now, a huge issue arises because the update was highly customized, which caused an error and the plugin was automatically deactivated (This is a serious issue because “websites on construction were exposed to public”); now; the customization made was deleted. Once activated back the ‘Coming soon page was showing “The Croods”, a Disney Movie on the background; this is a copyright infringement if webmaster does not catch that up; he/she can be target to liabilities. (a) Annoying Manner

I hope the explanation was concise and solved all your doubts. I do not like to leave bad reviews about any author; however, bad practices can have tremendous repercussions. On this case, it was just a coming soon page with minor issues; but, if authors decide to behave alike; the community would run into a lot of issues. It’s just not fine. Thank you for bringing the attention. I am always willing to cooperate.