I have been sick for so long that I wasn't able to write new content. As a web developer, I had to go through many clients unaware of website asset prices. If a website with WordPress needs to be built and have premium features then premium themes or plugins need to be bought from Themeforest or other websites. Or Through Shopify or Wix or any kind of CMS, if premium features need to be brought to the website, then buying premium assets like app/plugin, and theme need to be bought essentially. Here's how web development costing can be divided:
Details
Price
CMS/Hosting and Domain
$$
Assets Price(Plugin/App, Theme, Font, etc)
$$
Developer
$$
Total
$$$
This is just a simple breakdown of a business website for small businesses. For bigger projects, more costs will be added for sure. I had a client who was unaware of this costing breakdown and he asked me what this asset charge was! I explained to him but he was kind of a guy who would not pay any kind of money for themes or plugins. He was using Shopify and asked me if I could build him the same website as the Glozin theme. It takes a lot of time to develop a full-featured theme for CMSs and the time he gave me was very short. So I looked after the nulled theme of Glozin and I found it ( I am not going to mention the site name though). The theme I found was version 1.8.2 or something. I don't remember actually. After that, I went for Glozin's documentation and understood that the theme can be updated through an app in Shopify which is quite a good thing, right?
Glozin developers give the option to update the theme in one click and maybe they (or someone else, I don't know actually) developed an app called "NS - Discount in Cart" through which the theme can be updated in one click. So I tried it and found that while updating the theme, in the app, an error occurred but somehow, some new themes were installed in Shopify. The theme's version was 2.1. I went to customize and found the developers put an extra layer for security. In order to customize the theme, a purchase code is needed which I don't have because I just downloaded it and updated it.
After that, I downloaded the theme and wondered if I could do anything to disable or bypass this extra layer. One thing I haven't tried yet if demo contents can be imported using that app or not. I will definitely try it. After exploring for an hour, I understood that the whole thing was being handled by JavaScript and I started looking after JavaScript if I could get any clue or something. Guess what? I found it and I just disabled a function and everything started working well. I could do anything I wanted, I mean, there were no more barriers to using the theme. All I did was just comment a single line or disable a function from running, and that was it. Also, I didn't like the concept of having an option named "Purchase Code" in the theme settings option, so I removed the section from the setting schema file. It was pretty easy, right? But what about the developers who spent the day and night on this thing?!
That's the reason I left building WordPress plugins. Because WordPress plugins can be nulled easily. So I shifted to Shopify app development to implement my idea. If I was one of them, I would definitely go for different criteria for verifying. It's like I don't want my work to be ruined, right? I would like to deliver the content through the app where the app will send the token and the token will be verified through the system and the content will be delivered to the site. This is the most popular model to verify API, right? Here's a simple diagram I just made:
In the end, I felt guilty because I am a developer also. So I told the client it was not possible for me and I cut the contract. Yeah, I will send an email to the developers of Glozin soon so that they can protect their assets. One thing I would like to try is if we can get Glozin's content through just a normal theme skeleton because I figured that the app depends on the information of settings schema. So, I will try it.