Neve update breaks my footer

  • Resolved moonone2000

    (@moonone2000)


    2 years, 8 months ago

    I have a website using a child theme with Neve as the parent theme. I love the Neve theme and all the customization available.

    I have a copyright notice on the right side of the top line of the footer of my site. The ability to edit the copyright notice with one’s own details was always a part of the free version of Neve until now.

    But today I updated to the latest version of Neve on my staging site and discovered that with this update that Themeisle is no longer offering the copyright component. My copyright notice is gone. You apparently have completely removed the copyright component, breaking the formatting of my footer in the process, and also added an ugly link with the text “Neve | Powered by WordPress” at the very bottom of the page.

    There is still a “quicklink” that says “change copyright”, when customizing the footer, but it now brings you to the Neve Pro web page instead of the component you had offered before where you can change the content of your copyright.

    The “Neve | Powered by WordPress” text does not appear to be accessible anywhere in the customize menu. I also can’t find a way to hide it with CSS or change the style of it because the div and paragraph it is in both don’t appear to have any class assigned to them.

    I understand that Themeisle wants people to pay for the Pro version, I don’t blame you for that, and I was planning to upgrade and pay for that when my store is up and running and I have some cash rolling in. But I am very surprised and dismayed you just quietly and abruptly removed a feature that you had previously offered, and in a way that can also break the formatting of the footer. It really seems unusual and underhanded to do this to people after they have invested a lot of time and energy into building something with the set of features you had offered, only to have something removed later and your link/ad added in a way that can’t easily be hidden. It’s a little sleazy in my opinion and makes me question if I can trust using this theme going forward.

    So right now if I update the theme on my live site it will break my site. I’m glad I have a staging site and noticed this problem before I broke my live site. But now I am stuck at no longer being able to update the free version of Neve on my live site. Really?

    I looked at the features in Neve Pro but I don’t even see any documentation that they still offer the copyright component in the paid version, or a way to remove that ugly “Neve | Powered by WordPress” at the bottom of the page.

    My questions then are:

    Am I correct that Themeisle has done this? Quietly and abruptly removed a feature that they had offered until now, potentially breaking peoples sites?

    If I pay for the pro version will I be able to put my copyright notice back and remove the Neve link/text at the bottom?

    If I upgrade to the pro version will it break anything else in my child theme?

    Why should I pay Themeisle for the pro version when you have breached my trust? What other surprises do you have in store for me?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Thread Starter moonone2000

    (@moonone2000)

    I would like to add that your website still lists the copyright component as a feature you offer in the free version and ou describe it as “The Copyright component is an indispensable tool of the Header / Footer Builder, that appears at the bottom of the page.”

    So apparently you have decided to remove something you considerto be “indispensable”.

    Thread Starter moonone2000

    (@moonone2000)

    Update. It’s 14 hours later and I see you have now updated your website on the copyright component page to show this component as only being available in the pro version. You probably should also fix the link in the Components Library section of the Neve Footer Builder page where it still says this component is available in the free version. My guess is you will read this, not respond to me, and change that page before the next time I have a look.

    It’s becoming apparent to me that you have no response to this post. I guess you don’t care about screwing over the users of your free version. I understand needing to be paid, but removing something a feature like this after offering it for free is a breach of trust. It’s hard to fathom how you think this is the right thing to do.

    There are better ways to entice people to pay for the upgrade than breaking their site after they have put a lot of time and energy into building it. My plan was to upgrade to the pro version when I can afford to but now I’m looking into other themes or maybe building my own from scratch.

    Hi @moonone2000,

    Thank you for using Neve theme.

    We apologize for the frustration this change must have caused you. I do understand that this is not a popular decision but we analyzed the product sustainability and growth and in order to further support the innovation and development we appeal to our users to further support our work by either recommending our product if they like or financially via paying for the PRO version. Moreover please consider that Neve is a customer-funded project and without Premium product sales we can’t provide any updates whatsoever to the free product.

    With that in mind we have decided that if you want to update to the newer version, you’ll either have to get the premium version to get the functionality or accept that some features would be missing. Alternatively, you’re free to continue to use the 3.2.x version for as long as you want.

    If you think that Neve PRO does not provide enough value to buy it, I do understand but with the support of those that will do we hope to increase the value over time thru new features to make it worth it for you too.

    We appreciate your understanding.

    Thread Starter moonone2000

    (@moonone2000)

    Thank you for responding @bvytis.

    I don’t begrudge you needing to get paid for what you do. However, if I’m not mistaken I don’t think you or anybody else offers a free version of their theme out of pure generosity. You do it because it benefits you to have many users, which gives your product visibility, and then out of those many users, hopefully enough will like it enough to pay for the premium version.

    Neve is a great theme, one of the nicest, most customizable themes I’ve ever seen. It is one of the most popular themes out of thousands because it is so good. You’ve got over 300,000 installations. If you aren’t getting enough people to pay for the premium version then maybe the free version is actually too good. I understand this would be a problem for you.

    But removing a feature you had previously offered and that was integral to the site, specifically a change that causes a person’s personal copyright notice to just vanish (and change the formatting of the footer in the process) is a terrible way to entice people to your paid version. A major factor in selecting a theme, at least for me, is trust in the developers. Removing someone’s copyright and making it impossible to put it back without hacking the theme (or trying to find currently nonexistent funds to upgrade) gives one the impression you just don’t care if you really screw things up for users.

    Can you honestly not find a better way than this to entice people to your pro version? There must be other, better ways for you to move people to your paid version than holding their copyright notice hostage. There must be things you can offer to persuade users to upgrade rather than causing them trouble like this. Never updating beyond 3.2 is obviously not an option for anyone who wants to maintain the security of their site.

    I had been planning to buy the business version of your theme once I got things up and running. My site and the small business associated with it are in their very early stages so I had been using the free version until I got things really rolling and worked out any kinks. I did think Neve pro had enough value to buy it until now and was already planning to. But holding my copyright hostage to prod me in that direction actually makes me less inclined to do so.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • The topic ‘Neve update breaks my footer’ is closed to new replies.