Hi all,
I’ve had an item listed for over 5 years, rated 4.6/5 stars, 1,591 sales, regularly updated and out of no-where Envato has disabled the listing. Their reasons are mainly due to ‘code issues’, which include things like “using a unique prefix for all function names” and using “.on() rather than .click() in JS”. The changes are weeks worth of work!
While I appreciate best practices, I’m amazed that Envato has gone as far as dictating how authors write their code. Has anyone else had this?
For me I only make about $350 a month from the listing, so it’s not worth me taking the time to change it. I’ll just pull the listing instead.
The full list of changes they requested is below:
- Your demo is not working correctly.
(OP Note: This actually is working - https://ucloud.mfscripts.com)
- All JavaScript should be written with “use strict” mode on; For example, you can do this with jQuery:
(function($){
“use strict”;
//Code here
})(jQuery);
- Use on(); rather than .click(), .bind(), .hover(), .submit(), etc.
- Data must be correctly escaped and sanitized. Look at your $_POST and $_GET data.
- No inline CSS. All CSS must be separated into an external stylesheet.
- No inline JavaScript. All JavaScript must be separated into an external file.
- You’re bundling old versions of libraries. Please update all your libraries to their latest version.
- Remove all commented/unused code from all files.
- Please use a unique prefix for all function names, custom image sizes, classes, constants, hooks, public/global variables, and database entries to avoid conflict issues with plugins. Anything before the first underscore is classed as the prefix, and all prefixes must be 3 chars or more.
Some of these aren’t even relevant! I’m completely baffled by it to be honest. It’s almost like the reviewer has an interest in a competing script. Any feedback welcome.
Thanks,
Adam.
2 Likes
Interesting that points 5 & 6 say “no inline CSS or JS”. Yet the codecanyon.net website itself has both of these! 
1 Like
It usually happens when the buyers contact the support and report the item. In some cases, they may ignore it but since then, lots of things changed and you may need to consider to update the theme as well. You’re considering it’s not good enough to make $$$ per month but you should put yourself into the buyers’ shoes when they bought an item that needs an update and the author states “it’s not worth it”
If it’s not worth to update, it may not worth to be on sale as well.
If you’re not going to support the item after 5 years, it’s actually good idea to get the item removed (temporarily). You can always fix the problem and re-upload it.
CodeCanyon and ThemeForest has different upload requirements as well as it depends how you manage to use inline CSS/JS. If it’s done properly, it should be fine ( check the forum related topics )
Thanks for the feedback.
That’s the thing, I’ve done a huge amount of updates to the script and supported all buyers in the past 5 years.
If there was major issues the rating would be a lot lower than 4.6/5.0.
Just seems very hypocritical telling an author to code one way when their own website isn’t done like that.
I’ve raised a support request, hopefully I’ll get more clarity.
1 Like
WordPress submission requirements has been changed ( keep changing ) and it’d be best approach to keep the updates on your items. There was a big deal recently about “WP Requirements Compliant” I think you have missed or ignored it
Anyway, if you want your item back, you will end-up updating it as the new standards. I suggest not to wait up to 5-7 working days to hear this and instead of, you can use this time to get it updated. I don’t think it’d take longer than 1-2 days
Good luck!
It doesn’t use WordPress, it’s pure PHP using a framework based on Symfony. Twig for templating, composer for dependency management. Hence the changes aren’t a few days work.
I’m not sure if the reviewer has understood this based on the items they requested.
Was in the same situation a few months ago, with the same form letter. But I guess I was lucky it only took a couple hours to make the changes and keep the listing. Not too bad.
2 Likes
The same thing happened to me. Rejection of absolutely good item. Envato is well known for not giving a damn about Authors. That is why I do not do any more work for WordPress. There are other ways software developers can earn moneys. I will spend some time updating the item, if not successful I will write to the customers that they will no longer receive any updates. Anyway I get no money for updating the item, only for new sales. That is another stupid thing Envato does.
1 Like
Agreed there’s no real incentive to update items as someone that purchased 5 years ago can still get the latest code. It would be far better if they could only download updates if they’re within the support period, then there’s a real incentive for authors to publish updates. Otherwise they get the version up until their support expired. I do this on my own site and it works well.
I’ve managed to sucessfully appeal the original “quality review” and my item is live again. Although they’ve requested the changes are done as part of a future release.
Seems a much better way to handle this would be leaving the listing online and giving 30 days to make the changes or send an appeal. It also gets removed from existing customer downloads, so I had various customers complain they couldn’t re-download it. It’s left a bit of a sour taste by simply revoking the listing.
After my customers sent Envato an angry letter my item was also back 
Can you please share the solution that you use to make your item available until support ends at your site? Is it some Woo Commerce plugin. I would be happy to move to my own site as well should Envato do something like this again.
Great to hear you’ve got your listing back online.
My other site is all hand coded and not available via a plugin unfortunately. I did email Envato today to ask the best way to request the feature on their site, hopefully there’s a way to submit requests and open a discussion on it.