Basic features are locked

Dear @digihulpdienst we have never showed general options abilities on wordpress what does it mean you only find out after you install it if you know that our plugin have such abilities that mean you have looked at demos on our website and if something unacceptably for you regarding our free version plugin and our website you shouldn’t write review on wordpress. Yes plugin has payed version but it’s not relate to plugin you download from wordpress.

Like many other plugins, your plugin attracts news users by presenting wonderful features which are only available with a pro account (or whatever the name is for a payed version). The complaint is that it is only revealed after installing the plugin. It should be clear BEFORE we install a plugin.
And a good free plugin will get a donation from me, or I upgrade to PRO after I like the free version to support the developer.

So please, all plugin developers, make clear on the first page of the plugin presentation what it for free and what is not. This is saving us a lot of time and saves you a lot of 1-stars.

Dear @digihulpdienst really understand and appreciate your opinion, users shouldn’t be cheated and we are not the company that will not respect his users.
On first page of our plugin you can see on head banner that we have noted Design Management a PRO option.All other noted 7 points are free.
Non of our general options have been advertised on wordpress and if you find something that confused you and could confuse other users please tell us and we will change it.

*Drinks coffee, installs plugin, tries the most basic task gets this popup*

Oh yeah. That’s bait and switch alright. Users can report that to plugins [at] www.ads-software.com but if you do please provide explicit details. As I’m about to do. ??

@huge-it I am reasonably sure that this came up before.

*Drinks coffee*

From your plugin page:

Portfolio Gallery uses 7 view options and can be customized using the General Options. Almost all kind of texts are customizable in terms of text and color.

The features of the Portfolio Gallery:

WordPress Portfolio / Gallery ready

7 Views of Portfolio Gallery :

• Blocks Toggle Up/Down
• Full-Height Blocks
• Gallery / Content-Popup
• Full-Width Blocks
• FAQ Toggle Up/Down
• Content Slider
• <p>Lightbox Gallery</p>
• <p>Unlimited amount of images to be added to the Portfolio Gallery</p>
• Possibility of adding various portfolios
• Possibility of adding various images for each portfolio gallery
• Image, title and description to the Portfolio Gallery
• Possibility to add URL to tailor specific pages to the Portfolio Gallery
• Possibility to use different Portfolios / Galleries for different pages
• Autogenerated shortcode for the easier process of adding the Portfolio / Gallery to the posts/pages/templates
• Possibility to add Portfolio / Gallery in widgets right from widgets admin panel
• Drag and Drop functionality. Drag and drop images/projects to rearrange their sequence in the Portfolio / Gallery
• Full Documentation
• Sample Portfolios / Galleries Included

Which of those many features is not on your free version? When you do not delineate which is “premium” and which is not available then that could easily construed as bait and switch. Don’t you think so?

Especially when the plugin guidelines do say this:

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/about/guidelines/

5. Trialware is not allowed in the repository. It’s perfectly fine to attempt to upsell the user on other products and features, but a) not in an annoying manner and b) not by disabling functionality after some time period. Similarly, you cannot “cripple” functionality in the plugin and then ask for payment or provide a code to unlock the functionality. All code hosted by www.ads-software.com servers must be free and fully-functional. If you want to sell advanced features for a plugin (such as a “pro” version), then you must sell and serve that code from your own site, we will not host it on our servers.

I highlighted some portions there. It comes up especially when your plugin clearly does state this

This plugin is the non-commercial version of the Huge IT Portfolio / Gallery. If you want to customize to the styles and colors of your website,than you need to buy a license. Purchasing a license will add possibility to customize the general options and lightbox of the Huge IT Portfolio / Gallery.

Under the licensing portion.

I really hope that all of your other plugins are not like this… I’d hate to check out all 8 of them…

Dear Jan Dembowski, at first don’t hate your work =) Then I need to say that all Features that you have copied and posted here are free and always will. We only have one line about PRO version it says ‘Upgrade to WordPress Portfolio / Gallery Pro to Customizable Styles and Colors.’

Before sharing our plugins with community we have read WP guidelines and have tried to follow them.in 5th point it says not to “cripple” functionality so why at first we have set image of general options but many of users confused with image so we set only visible part of options to advertise them.

You did cripple actually.

I can edit all those settings directly in the DB, which means you disabled the interface. That’s crippling.

If you don’t want people to edit them, remove the settings page and hard code it all into the plugin. THAT would actually be permitted. Annoying, but permitted.

I’m pretty sure Jan doesn’t get paid by the way, he’s not working for WordPress.

I can edit all those settings directly in the DB, which means you disabled the interface.

Oh yes this was a way to edit the setting since the latest “bug fixing” in version 1.2.9 or 1.3.0 I’m not sure. Now even the settings gui is just an image. On the plugin page you cant even download an older version like 1.2.8 or something. Lucky me I’ve got an local copy of the version 1.2.4 here. So if anyone want’s the older features back (ok you must edit the settings in the db) just contact me.

b) not by disabling functionality after some time period.

I havn’t looked at the code yet, but what you guys “bug fixed” here lately was definitv disabling functionality.