Is it possible to use the plugin without WooCommerce?

Hello @ehtmlu

thank you for your message and for using my plugin.

Well, the plugin name is “License Manager for WooCommerce“, but I suppose I could also make it work without it. It would definitely be a bigger task since the “WooCommerce integration code” is not a 100% separated from the plugin.

Have you tried this already on a test server?

Hello Dra?en,

Thank you for your quick response.

Yes I know. I found your plugin at a point when I thought I would use WooCommerce.

I only have a test installation where I installed both plugins and activated/deactivated the WooCommerce plugin. But I haven’t tried changing your plugin to make it work without WooCommerce yet. I thought maybe there is an easy fix for this.

In general it would be great if it would work without WooCommerce as well because it is really a good and beautiful license manager. Maybe one day I’ll have time to help (the source code seems to be clean and not too complicated). Unfortunately at the moment I’m a bit bussy. So, I think I’ll just keep WooCommerce installed for now.

Thank you very much for your answer and especially for this great license manager ??

Best regards,
Helmut

Hello @ehtmlu

I’ll make it a task for the future, but it definitely doesn’t have a high priority. This means that, to be on the safe side, you should probably keep WooCommerce installed until I make it work without it.

Link to the GitHub issue: https://github.com/drazenbebic/license-manager-for-woocommerce/issues/184

Hello Drazen,

thank you very much. I just want to let you know that I decided to write my own license management for my product. Not only because I don’t need WooCommerce but also because it gives me more control over multiple activations for one license key.
So if you actually don’t want to make it independent from WooCommerce, I wouldn’t be disappointed ??

Maybe you’re interested in the idea how I get more control over the activations. If you like my idea, you’re welcome to implement the concept in your license manager as well.

Here is how I do it:
On activation my license manager verifies the license key and if valid it creates a separate activation key for the specific activation. This activation key can be stored on the product side. In that case it’s possible to provide a central activation management user interface where customers can see all their activations and can revoke a specific activation. This enables the customer to deactivate a product (wp-plugin for example) even if she/he has no access anymore (because of a deleted wordpress installation for example).

Just an idea ?? .. Take it if you like it ?? .. for sure it also has cons (e.g. product need to verify the activation periodically).

All the best and have a great day,
Helmut

Hello @ehtmlu

This exact feature is something I’m working on for the paid plugin version.

As you said, when the license gets activated the “Activation” will be stored as a separate entity in a separate place (not sure yet if custom table or custom post type). These “Activations” will also store additional information like IP Address (if enabled), User Agent, domain, activation request payload, etc. The plugin will also generate a unique ID of this activation which can be used for validation requests. The application can from time to time send a validation request to make sure it’s still valid. If you disable/delete the activation the application will no longer work, and will need to be reactivated (as long as the original license allows for this).

Let me know what you think of this.

Hello @drazenbebic

you’re absolutely right, it really seems to be the exact same feature ??
I am currently not storing any IP addresses or user agents, but the rest seems to be exactly the same.

I have only used custom tables, not least because I’m more a PHP developer than a WordPress developer. So I don’t know much about WordPress-specific techniques.

If there are benefits in creating custom posts, this might be a good idea. If there weren’t any real benefits I’d do it in custom tables, as the post table is sure to get searched frequently and I think a bunch of activation keys would inflate the table unnecessarily. So if there is no concrete reason to store them in the posts table, I would place them in a custom table. This is only my opinion. But as I said, I’m actually not a WordPress developer, so I don’t know what is considered good practice and what is bad practice in that case. And I also don’t know what possibilities custom posts offer.

I’m also working on a plugin with a free version and a paid version. And I was wondering if it was better to limit the features of the plugin or only the number of images (it’s a gallery plugin). I just thought about it because it seems you decided to limit the features. Instead, it would be possible, for example, to limit the number of allowed license keys. Both has pros and cons. Have you thought about this? Or did this question not arise at all?

Best regards,
Helmut

Hello @ehtmlu

This is something that needs to be decided based on the business logic of the application/plugin.

The conclusion I came to is: If I allow a certain number of activations/license keys in the free plugin, it might cover the use-case for a high percentage of potential customers, who will then see no need to switch to the paid version.

I honestly don’t know what kind of limits to set, but I do know that a lot of people have been asking for this feature, saying that they would gladly pay for it.

I’m afraid I don’t have a definitive answer for you, but I hope that my insight will help out at least a little bit ??

Hello @drazenbebic

thank you very much for your insight and opinion. Yes, it helps a little bit ??

I hope you enjoyed our conversation as much as I did. It is a pleasure to talk and exchange ideas with creative people like you.

Wish you much success with your plugin ????

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Helmut Wandl.