SiteJet automatically adding itself to the Client Area without any admin interaction

[websavers]

If a hosting plan already has support for it, apparently it just takes over the entire Client Area dashboard advertising it HUGE. Even when the customer already has a site there not using Sitejet...

This should have been disabled by default for existing installs, enabled by default for new installs. Yet I don't even see any option to disable it without editing the CSS.

#sitejetPromoPanel{ display: none; }

Funny thing is, I don't even dislike Sitejet, I just realllly don't want this to confuse customers who already have sites built with something else, and it certainly will do that based on how WHMCS chose to implement it.

[websavers]

Oh apparently SiteJet is also somehow more important than Plesk login links (also on the dashboard, within the hosting plan service list): it makes all Login to Plesk links secondary to Sitejet.

Is there a better way to go back to how things worked before? I want my hosting plans to offer SiteJet, but I don't want it to take over everything in the WHMCS Client Area.

Edited April 30 by websavers

[RadWebHosting]

It's kind of more frustrating than license price hikes 

[sol2010]

How can we disable and remove SiteJet completely ?

I have absolutely no requirment for it at all and clients will not understand it.

 

 

[WHMCS William]

Hi @websavers , we appreciate that not everyone prefers to offer Sitejet to their clients. On cPanel/WHM servers that are version 110 or 116 or Plesk 12.2+ I can confirm the option will be present by default.

If you would like to prevent Sitejet from appearing in the client area for some products, especially those where the client will be using a different builder or script, you can create a Feature List for in WHM for that package that has the Sitejet option unchecked. For Plesk you can disable Sitejet via the permissions on the service plan. 

The attached screenshot shows the Sitejet display for the client area, which is a single container displayed only if Sitejet is enabled in the WHM Feature List / Plesk Service Plan for that product. 

You could also use a hook to change the order of the links in the sidebar if you prefer the login links to remain on top: https://docs.whmcs.com/Client_Area_Sidebars_Cheatsheet#Re-arranging_Sidebar_Items

The above also applies if you do not wish to use Sitejet at all @sol2010 , if Sitejet is disabled in the servers service plan or feature list then it will not be shown in the WHMCS client area. 

 

[websavers]

15 minutes ago, WHMCS William said:

For Plesk you can disable Sitejet via the permissions on the service plan. 

The problem is, I *do* want clients to have access to it in Plesk in case they want to use it, but I do *not* want SiteJet to take over everything for them in WHMCS as it's far more confusing to have it there than in Plesk.

15 minutes ago, WHMCS William said:

The attached screenshot shows the Sitejet display for the client area, which is a single container displayed only if Sitejet is enabled in the WHM Feature List / Plesk Service Plan for that product. 

The problem is, what if a customer uses WordPress and doesn't know it - they're going to be super confused as to what this is and think, oh great I can edit my site right from here! And then potentially wipe out the entirety of their WordPress website when they go to publish it, or be super confused about why their site content isn't there when they open SiteJet. You *really* need to have this option only appear *if* the primary domain is already using SiteJet or has no website at all yet. Not just blanket for every hosting plan.

15 minutes ago, WHMCS William said:

You could also use a hook to change the order of the links in the sidebar if you prefer the login links to remain on top: https://docs.whmcs.com/Client_Area_Sidebars_Cheatsheet#Re-arranging_Sidebar_Items

How do I access the hosting plan / services list on the Client Area dashboard with this? Is it considered a sidebar?

15 minutes ago, WHMCS William said:

The above also applies if you do not wish to use Sitejet at all @sol2010 , if Sitejet is disabled in the servers service plan or feature list then it will not be shown in the WHMCS client area. 

Yes, I understood this from the documentation. And this is great for people who don't want SiteJet anywhere, ever. But why should it be all or nothing? If you truly want people to start using SiteJet, then don't only provide the option to force it everywhere or have it nowhere at all - allow us to choose where we want it to be displayed. And given that WHMCS doesn't have awareness of addon domains or subdomains within a hosting plan, having these options in WHMCS is kinda useless for anyone but the customer with a single domain, and a single website, who only wants a site builder and not other solutions like WordPress or Magento. Meanwhile having the SiteJet option in Plesk makes perfect sense because then the customer can choose on which domains or subdomains they wish to use it. Yet you're saying that to hide it in WHMCS I have to disable it in Plesk too, so customers can't use it at all...

Edited May 2 by websavers

[WHMCS William]

Hi @websavers,
 

1 hour ago, websavers said:

The problem is, what if a customer uses WordPress and doesn't know it - they're going to be super confused as to what this is and think, oh great I can edit my site right from here! And then potentially wipe out the entirety of their WordPress website when they go to publish it, or be super confused about why their site content isn't there when they open SiteJet. You *really* need to have this option only appear *if* the primary domain is already using SiteJet or has no website at all yet. Not just blanket for every hosting plan.

 If a client clicks the Edit Website button, the first page they get taken to asks them to pick a website template to start with.

Should they choose one and continue they are then dropped into an editor filled with dummy content. 

Their existing site would only be removed should they choose to then publish, requiring several steps to ultimately accidentally remove their existing content. 

That said we are looking to add a prompt with a warning before publishing continues, as you see when using Sitejet from within cPanel and Plesk.

The API for that does not yet exist in cPanel or Plesk and we are waiting for those to be provided. 

To help prevent confusion, future plans include having both the Edit Website and Login to cPanel or Plesk options both visible in the "Your Active Products/Services" area, without clicking a dropdown.

We had hoped to deliver that with this update but that change remains a high priority and feedback, such as yours, helps drive the priority of that.

1 hour ago, websavers said:

How do I access the hosting plan / services list on the Client Area dashboard with this? Is it considered a sidebar?

That is correct. Using my own cPanel install as an example the menu item is Primary_Sidebar-Service-Details_Actions-sitejet

1 hour ago, websavers said:

Yes, I understood this from the documentation. And this is great for people who don't want SiteJet anywhere, ever. But why should it be all or nothing? If you truly want people to start using SiteJet, then don't only provide the option to force it everywhere or have it nowhere at all - allow us to choose where we want it to be displayed. And given that WHMCS doesn't have awareness of addon domains or subdomains within a hosting plan, having these options in WHMCS is kinda useless for anyone but the customer with a single domain, and a single website, who only wants a site builder and not other solutions like WordPress or Magento. Meanwhile having the SiteJet option in Plesk makes perfect sense because then the customer can choose on which domains or subdomains they wish to use it. Yet you're saying that to hide it in WHMCS I have to disable it in Plesk too, so customers can't use it at all...

We certainly understand your position here and I can assure you that feedback has been passed up for review. This is a new feature, and the first version of it, so we really do value the perspective of how our clients want it to function. 

[bear]

45 minutes ago, WHMCS William said:

That said we are looking to add a prompt with a warning before publishing continues

The better option is to make this FULLY OPT IN for the admin. Don't enable or display ANY of it ANYWHERE until an admin of the WHMCS installation reviews and decides to offer it. Ourselves,  as an example, host the websites we design/create almost exclusively. There will never be a time in the foreseeable future we would want our billing system to advertise a self service web  design type application. The WHMCS logic is "add it without asking, and see if the complaints are large and loud enough to make it optional". 
Not for the first time, as I recall (I'm reminded of the unwanted SSL icons, checks and 3rd party links, for one).

[websavers]

This CSS doesn't make the client area homepage active services list exactly how it was, but it does wipe out the sitejet stuff at least:

#sitejetPromoPanel{ display: none !important; }
button[data-identifier="sitejet"],
li[data-identifier="sitejet"]{ display:none !important; }
button[data-identifier="sitejet"] + .btn-group > .btn[data-toggle="dropdown"]{
  border-top-left-radius: 3.2px;
  border-bottom-left-radius: 3.2px;
}

 

2 hours ago, WHMCS William said:

That is correct. Using my own cPanel install as an example the menu item is Primary_Sidebar-Service-Details_Actions-sitejet

You're wrong. On the client area home page the active services list is a panel, not a sidebar. The panel has menu items, but I can't figure out how to edit the buttons within each menu item. Nothing in the class docs shows how to do this, and when I dump the data, it shows raw HTML and not object data for the services list and each service's button group.

Prove me wrong and provide the exact code to hide SiteJet buttons from the client area homepage.

[websavers]

Funny thing is, as @WHMCS William pointed out, I could just disable SiteJet entirely within our Plesk service plans  to solve this... and cut all of our customers off from SiteJet, which we actually wanted to begin offering (through Plesk only).

WHMCS has, with this one change, somehow managed to make it so that our team no longer wants to offer SiteJet at all. Prior to this we were gearing up to begin offering it for our customers. Great job!

Edited May 2 by websavers

[Cornelius373]

Is there any news on this yet? I have pretty much the same problem and have had a WHMCS ticket open for a few days now. However, they have not been able to help me so far. 

With the CSS code at least the huge banner in the clientarea is gone, but the “Login to Plesk” button is missing and the “Edit with Sitejet Builder” is not gone yet. 

[Cornelius373]

I have now removed Sitejet with the following CSS elements: 

#sitejetPromoPanel{ display: none !important; }
button[data-identifier=“sitejet”],
li[data-identifier=“sitejet”]{ display:none !important; }
button[data-identifier=“sitejet”] + .btn-group > .btn[data-toggle=“dropdown”]{
  border-top-left-radius: 3.2px;
  border-bottom-left-radius: 3.2px;
}

button[data-identifier=“sitejet”] + .btn-group > .btn[data-toggle=“dropdown”],
.btn-group:has(> button[data-identifier=“sitejet”]) > .btn[data-toggle=“dropdown”] {
  display: none !important;
}

additionally with this hook: 

<?php

use WHMCS\View\Menu\Item as MenuItem;

add_hook('ClientAreaPage', 1, function($vars) {
    $primarySidebar = Menu::primarySidebar();
    if ($primarySidebar) {
        $serviceActions = $primarySidebar->getChild('Service Details Actions');
        if ($serviceActions) {
            $serviceActions->removeChild('sitejet');
        }
    }
});

And dear WHMCS team, please add an option to deactivate this change for future changes. 

[Thais]

Hello,

 

How code I need put in a hook to hide the sitejet from dashboard clients?

Tks

[websavers]

18 hours ago, Thais said:

Hello,

 

How code I need put in a hook to hide the sitejet from dashboard clients?

Tks

 

Here's a hook file that combines all of it, including hiding it in the admin: https://github.com/websavers/WHMCS-Hook-Sitejet-Deactivate

[Thais]

6 minutes ago, websavers said:

Here's a hook file that combines all of it, including hiding it in the admin: https://github.com/websavers/WHMCS-Hook-Sitejet-Deactivate

Tks 🙂

[websavers]

On 5/2/2024 at 2:28 PM, WHMCS William said:

The API for that does not yet exist in cPanel or Plesk and we are waiting for those to be provided. 

Just wanted to comment on this. If you're implementing a feature in WHMCS and you find the only way to do it is to cripple the implementation in WHMCS because the upstream software doesn't have the capabilities yet, then you should absolutely not be implementing the new feature without waiting for that functionality to become available upstream (ie: via the cPanel and Plesk APIs). It's really that simple.

The current outcome of this 'feature' is even more absurd when you consider that Plesk, cPanel, and WHMCS are all part of the same parent company.

You guys have numerous feature requests from the community that you could focus on instead of a half-baked feature like this. Would love to see that top requested client area billing term change functionality. But no, a half-assed Sitejet integration was more important to your business daddy.

[gei]

Just upgraded - goodness this is horrible. Who thought this was a good idea? Thanks for the help above with removing this - but why isn't this option present in WHMCS itself?

[gei]

On 5/6/2024 at 1:58 PM, websavers said:

Here's a hook file that combines all of it, including hiding it in the admin: https://github.com/websavers/WHMCS-Hook-Sitejet-Deactivate

Thanks for making it easy for us. A shame something so blatantly necessary needs to be handled by the userbase.

[websavers]

2 hours ago, gei said:

Thanks for making it easy for us. A shame something so blatantly necessary needs to be handled by the userbase.

You're welcome! I agree. For a number of versions now, it felt like WHMCS was finally starting to implement what its users actually want and, for a while there, even the Webpros driven features were optional. Yet sadly it seems WHMCS is back to the mentality of "we push what we want to push on our users, even if it barely works!"

There's definitely a strong case for needing a great site builder for hosts, like SiteJet, to compete with Wix/Weebly/Squarespace. But this integration was horribly implemented.

I would have loved a list of all hosted domains under the hosting plan, with the option to start a site with SiteJet next to each of the domains, but offered only when no other apps were yet installed. But rather than waiting for the ability to do this from the Plesk and cPanel APIs they just forged ahead haphazardly. I'm damn glad WHMCS doesn't write software for vehicles or transit 😉

[RadWebHosting]

On 5/6/2024 at 1:05 PM, websavers said:

You guys have numerous feature requests from the community that you could focus on instead of a half-baked feature like this. Would love to see that top requested client area billing term change functionality. But no, a half-assed Sitejet integration was more important to your business daddy.

Internally, this is known as the "List of New SaaS Ideas with verified demand" and it's the most valuable asset of whmcs.

[bear]

4 minutes ago, RadWebHosting said:

Internally, this is known as the "List of New SaaS Ideas with verified demand" and it's the most valuable asset of whmcs.

Curious how you'd be aware of what it's called internally to WHMCS. 
Still, it's a shame they generally ignore it. 

[gei]

Since their acquisition, their only goal is to extract as much money from us as possible. They stopped trying to actually add value to clients many years ago. Along those lines, I see this in WHMCS under Utilitles/SiteJet:

Coming Soon to WHMCS MarketConnect: Sitejet Studio, with the ability to host websites on Sitejet's infrastructure with no cPanel & WHM or Plesk server required.

How much longer until they straight up start just stealing clients from us?

Like with cPanel, I am very wary of any "feature" they add.

[websavers]

43 minutes ago, bear said:

Still, it's a shame they generally ignore it. 

We did get a few of those bigger top requested features over the past few years, including:

• 8.10: automatic cancellation of overdue invoices
• 8.8 and 8.9: Paypal gateway that *shouldn't* screw up as much and on-demand renewals
• 8.3: improved email reply importing
• 8.0: The shared user system

Having said that, while looking through the release notes for every 8.x version, it's pretty clear that their dev priorities are something like 3:1 internal mandates to community requests. Which is disappointing when you consider that they in some ways de-prioritize their customer's requests while simultaneously raising prices significantly over the same period of time.

[Damo]

There was no mention of this in release notes. It should be an opt-in feature ( feature being a loose term/reference) 

Everything that changes to the client area must be documented, clearly documented. 

[bear]

On 5/10/2024 at 8:16 PM, websavers said:

The shared user system

Oh, you mean the implementation of user/client thing? That implementation broke a lot of things, including the ability of password changes by admins, though they cited it was for "security" that it was removed. I admit I stopped looking at feature requests when it became clear it was mainly a time waster, but don't recall someone asking for that.  Can you point to it?