WHMCS License addon issues

[scogadots]

I have tried to avoid this post but find myself with no other option. I am trying to get the "WHMCS license addon" working but as I am finding out it requires "additional" programming to work like "WHMCS" license works. If you read the license addon page it states:

 

1 - License & distribute your own applications

2 - Simple Copy & Paste Code Integration

3 - Local & Remote Licensing Included

4 - The same licensing system we use

 

1. I can get the license to read valid or invalid

2. Not even close to just copy & paste

3. Needs additional coding to work

4. It doesn't without additional PHP coding & using a database or flat flie to read keys

 

I am really confused as to why we need to spend an additional $99 for a system that needs additional work.

 

If anyone can please enlighten me as to why this is, I would truly appreciate it.

[tsiedsma]

You pay for the module, the sample code you are referring to is just that, a sample. This type of module obviously requires you to have experience with PHP in order to use it to its fullest potential. I have taken this module and incorporated it into all of my modules, my code barely resembles the sample anymore. This module was definitely worth the $99 I paid for it and then some!

[Matt]

The licensing addon sample code that is provided is a fully working sample. No additional coding is needed - but it is recommended to use local keys for stability. That's the additional coding you refer to, the storing and reading of the local key, which depending on your scripts architecture, would determine how you want to store it (flat file, database, etc...), and thus cannot be provided as part of the sample.

 

I very much doubt you'll find any system more simple than our licensing addon in terms of licensing integration, but I see you have now requested a refund so all the best with your future search.

 

Matt

[Kasimir61]

Hmm, Matt - this Guy is angry about the Text - just copy and paste. And really, the Documentation is not the Hit. So please understand, that we not all the big Coders and have dayly Work on whmcs.

 

for me is the same, i dont understand how this shouldt be work with flatfile and copy & paste...

It was also a very good Idea to let us know Step by Step, how to do it simple with working Example and a nearly complete Documentation, howto...

 

i am really sure, that the Hint howto was much better, then anytime new half statements. I am a Buyer too and i use nearly all of your Products and pay for that. But if i pay and dont use nulled Scripts like a lot of other Users, then it shouldt be good - if there is Help by requesting Help.

 

for this Problem here - and at this time you got the Money for this Modul from all of us

we need more Help in detail. So please - think about Guys, what are not so professional like yours !

 

Thanks for (i hope) a example now for Guys, what will only become to run its Licensing Modul.

 

and yes... if you want, i tell you i am to stpid to understand your Instructions for now..

 

Have a nice Day... and sorry for my bad english..

Kasi

Edited February 14, 2012 by Kasimir61
Errors in Text

[leemason]

i think the licensing addon sample is fine, ive altered it and made it inot a class for easier use, but yes if your not a php developer it might be a little over the top.

 

the way i have it working now only requires you include the license class i created and the this code:

 

if(!class_exists('whmcs_nhp_addon_class')){require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/nhp_wrapper.php');}

global $modulename;
$module = new whmcs_nhp_addon_class(array('module' => 'modulename', 'secret_key' => 'yoursecrectkey', 'url' => 'http://clients.no-half-pixels.com/', 'local_key_valid' => 30));

 

then to check the license you just use this:

 

global $modulename;

$license = $modulename->check_license();

if($license['status'] != "Active"){
	echo $license['echo_result'];
	//for debugging
	//echo "<textarea cols=100 rows=20>"; print_r($license); echo "</textarea>";
	return;//prevent further script exicution
}

 

 

the script requires a row in the tbladdonmodules called modulename => license (easliy setup using the addon config options) and stores the key in the same table under local_license

 

 

you just set your urls and time to allow local key valid and failed attempts (all have default values if you dont state).

 

it also logs admin activity to show the license errors should there be any.

 

 

i think you just need to sit down with the sample for a day and make a script which can be used across multiple products to cut down your coding time.

 

id be happy to discuss creating you some script ike mine for you to use if you want.

[Matt]

We certainly appreciate and take on board your feedback, and will see what we can do in terms of improving the documentation and code samples, but as mentioned previously, the licensing addon is intended for use by developers, to protect the code they develop, and so an understanding of PHP will always be required to fully utilise and make full use of this addon module.

 

Matt

[Nathanael]

The main target of the license addon are developers, the code is pretty simple and anyone with php experience will be able to implement it in their custom module.

[zomex]

There's guide a good guide on how to use the addon module below:

 

http://markspixel.com/blog/2010/09/01/how-to-configure-and-setup-whmcs-licensing-addon/

 

Although it is targeted at developers I do still think the documentation is lacking, it's been mentioned many times in the past.

 

That said once you play around with it a bit it comes much easier to work with & implement.

[durangod]

I am a developer myself, and i have written my own php licensing software as well as my own affiliate software which i market them both. I must say in my case i purchased the license addon as well as WHMCS because my first impression when shopping around was that WHMCS was at the top of the leaderboard and leader of the pack in many ways. What i didnt know is that you have such fabulious software but in many ways it is sad to see such a great effort and hard work get a bad rap because of followthru in teaching and actually showing users how to apply it to their world.

 

The reason many developers in my opinion get the licensing addon is because they want to be able to license their product like myself without having to write code and manage it with too much hands on.

 

What im saying is that i wanted to focus my time on marketing my software and marketing my hosting company, NOT ripping code apart and rewriting code or having to read a crap load of documentation to get my brain wrapped around the process. And writing code that should already be written BECAUSE THATS WHAT I PAID FOR, copy paste done ! Otherwise i would have just written it myself and integrated my license software into WHMCS.

 

I do believe the license addon explanation and description is misleading to the general public. It does not matter how you slice it, if we pay for something and follow your instructions it should work, period.

 

I will give you a tip here and something that would help us understand the process because your documentation as a rule of thumb for the software globally is not very clear. I have a very hard time understanding what you want us to do because you talk as if we know exactly what your talking about all the time. Here is the secret for the license addon, make a flowchart and post it in the documention, that right there will help many of us understand the concept and even be able to debug our own versions if we understand the process first.

 

I purchased WHMCS and the licensing addon because as i said i wanted to focus on running my business, not having to turn my world upsidedown with such a huge learning curve with your software. But i guess that is not the case, yes your software is good i will give you that. But if your not going to enable easire application of such software to your customers then all you do is agrevate us because instead of running our business we spend our time reading documentation and creating service tickets for things that should be easy and work without stress.

[Matt]

Hi there,

 

As discussed previously in this thread, the licensing addon does include the code you need to add to the application you want to license - and it's simply a case of copy and paste unless you want to implement local license keys - which are recommended. All you have to do is add the storage for those (saving and retrieval), but the point is the way you would do those would depend on the rest of your apps architecture so can't really be included by default.

 

So it really is very simple to integrate the license addon into your code but we we will look at working on some additional documentation and samples.

 

Matt

[durangod]

Thanks yes i did finally get it working with the license key and now i am going to tackle the local license. Now that i have it working i do really think that some kind of flow chart will greatly increase understanding and reduce many of the structure questions you receive.

 

For anyone new to this addon the markspixel tutoral above is a good one, so go ahead and follow that for the most part, however even that seems to be a bit confusing when it comes to licensekey. As you do not need to change the name of the var $licensekey as he did, you can just leave it alone and down at the bottom of the code sample comment out the licensekey val all together, as i have done. It had a value in there but for this example i took it out and put x.

 

//$licensekey = "xxxxxxx"

 

Then make you a license config php file and inside of that put, you an name the file whatever you want to name it.

The purpose of this license config file is that when your customer downloads the software he will get a key from you, they will copy and paste the key into this config file to auth their software. That way you can go ahead and encrypt the license check file if you want and all the cust needs to see is the conf file, not the rest of your code.

 

of course put your opening and closing php tags

 

$licensekey = "put your license key here";

 

then include that config file just before you include the license check file.

 

and whalla it works. Try it out, go to your whmcs and change the status and you sill see it changes.

 

You will also need to change some of the page display commands just as he did is his tutorial, but that all depends on your software and where you put the check code.

 

I think people get confused because they expect this complicated process where its actually a simple concept, unfortunately some of the doc statements are not clear or deep enough in explanation, they just touch on the surface and that is not the purpose of documentation.

 

One other thing is that if you notice on your test runs, if the customer logs in and goes to their services you will notice that the license key is a clickable link, which goes nowhere. This was actually designed for domains which is why it is a link. So you can leave it alone or you can modify that in side of clientareaproducts.tpl file. This is how i did mine i will share it with you. Let me explain first.

For my software i set up a Group called Software.

Now the code checks:

If the group is not "Software" then it will display the normal link. If it is "Software" then it will only display the information without the link tags.

 

here is now i changed my clientareaproducts.tpl file.

Notice the ! in the if statement for NOT

Of course if your group is called something other than software then youll need to change that text

 

 
<td>{$service.group} - {$service.product}{if $service.domain}<br />
      {if !$service.group == "Software"}
      <a href="http://{$service.domain}" target="_blank">{$service.domain}</a>
      {else}
      {$service.domain}
      {/if}
   {/if}</td>

 

Now it will show a link when its suppose to and it wont if it is software license key display info.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

Now i will work on getting the local key working and i will report back here.

Edited March 24, 2012 by durangod

[durangod]

I also wanted to add the following

 

First thing if you are new to this is to understand dont be intimidated by this. You have two main values, the licensekey and the localkey. For a down and dirty install you dont even need to use the local key, so just comment that out on the bottom of the sample code if you want and forget its there all together. Then there is no extra db storage to worry about because whmcs does it all for you.

 

The only reason you would even want to use the localkey (and the purpose of it) is the keep the license check from having to check every single time the page is loaded. Its purpose is to set the value the first time (lets say someone runs it today) and then keep that value for the rest of the browser activity, if that makes sense. It just saves systems resources. But you dont need it.

 

On a footnote why the admin of this board sets the edit time for threads to 15min is BS in my book, whats the reasoning behind that i wonder. How about an hour edit time admin geeessshhh!! Can you give us an hour you think.

Edited March 24, 2012 by durangod

[Patty]

Here is a very good step-by-step tutorial on how to use the addon:

http://markustenghamn.com/configure-setup-whmcs-licensing-addon

[kumiyare]

I would like to understand one thing about integrating the licensing Addon.

 

Where should I put the license checking function?

 

If I put it in a separate file and include it, there will a possibility that a malicious user could track that file and remove it.

 

If I add at the top of each file in my software, then the software will be huge and there will be too many unnecessary license checking calls.

 

Could anyone share with us a preferred approach of license integration and how can we minimize the possibility of defeating license mechanism?

 

Thanks

Edited September 7, 2012 by kumiyare

[Nathanael]

Add it as a static method in your class. I think thats the easiest way to implement it.

 

Mymodule::checkLicense();

 

In the whmcs main file there should be only the basic logic. The rest in one or more classes.

Edited September 8, 2012 by Nathanael

[italiantrans]

I do believe the license addon explanation and description is misleading to the general public. It does not matter how you slice it, if we pay for something and follow your instructions it should work, period.

[openmind]

If you are purchasing an addon that is designed to license applications you run yourself (in PHP) and you are not able to get it working without having your hand held then doesn't that say something? As in coding ability?

 

The addon is not aimed at the general public. It is aimed at developers who have a good understanding of PHP. If you don't have a good understanding of PHP then it's not for you. Simple.

 

For the record I have it implemented with a ColdFusion application so not even using PHP simply because I know what I'm doing when it comes to web development.

[alaali]

The addon is very clear for any developer who know what he is doing.

 

We are using the addon with .NET desktop applications without any issue.

 

The samples included is just for reference, You should use it as a guidance.

 

I think the licensing addon is very good and doing what is supposed to do.