Hey, Xerxes. Glad you stopped by to try us out. The text is really just an attempt to spread the word about Ubercart and boost our pagerank as we slowly climb the search engine rankings for open source e-commerce projects. It'll take a while before we unseat Zencart as the #1.

Anyways, it's definitely not required, and many folks have taken it out for design requirements. It's built into the store module, so you can use a search and replace to take care of it.

Good call. I'll move that into a theme function right now. It should help folks that want to keep it in there but just tweak it a bit to match their themes, too.

EDIT: Change committed.

I understand that some people (read maybe most people) don't want that link in the footer. Our position is that we work hard, spend a lot of time, and money to develop Ubercart. We then give it away for free. We then provide exceptional free support. All we ask in return is that you leave that link in place. That link is, in my opinion, a small price to pay for a great, free, well supported piece of software. We do not try to enforce the placement of the link (as oscommerce and others do) via copy write and threatening language, but we are not going to easily facilitate disabling it either. If it is not enough of an issue for you to edit the code and remove it, then maybe you should just leave it.

The footer link is there to promote Ubercart and allow other people like you to find Ubercart. The more people use Ubercart, the better it will become, so you get some direct benefit from it. So you can leave it there for your own benefit, you can leave it there because we ask you to, or you can leave it there for good karma, but please, just leave it
Peace,
Andy

I think it should be possible to disable the link. There are a lot of way to participate to the Ubercart community (developping module or bring help on forums for example). Most of shop developper are not store owner, and I had to remove the link because the store owner that order the website I developped didn't want to see that in his footer.

Andy:

I also agree with you. Considering the amount of time and effort, it is little to ask that credit be given to those that make Uber possible. If folks do not desire to respect the work of others then there are commercial carts available for use.

For those that desire to remove the link, one possible scenario is to tell the customer/client that with the link removed there is a $500 charge. If they go for it then that amount can be donated to Uber.

Just my opinion.

Jim

Jim, thanks for say what I feel it is not my place to say. I think Ubercart's greatest asset is our great community of developers and users like you.

72dpi - We absolutely want to get the AusPost module working flawlessly. I think this is the first time any of the Uber-team have worked on a project this big. The question of which new feature to implement next is kind of a surprise to us. At least once a day we see some new worthy module or feature for Ubercart which deserves attention. We will get to them all as soon as we can.

As for the offer of your first born child; I don't think that is such a good idea. We are not very good with kids. Giving your child to us will almost certainly result in a disastrous setback in your child's development.

Peace,
Andy

I've not disabled the link... and I've not even used Ubercart to live sites yet, just trying to learn to use it etc. However. everything seems Very Promising and I've already donated to Ubercart because I clearly see the power of the software and I'm respecting the hard work of the Ubercart developers - Highly Appreciated!

I'm going to donate something of every live site I'm using Ubercart... and I'm inviting also the other Ubercart users to do the same... these guys deserve it... Thanks!

PS. and of course, if possible, please keep the link active.

What kind of mentality is this? This is clearly not a drupal mentality to add the footer link. In case you haven't noticed, Drupal is one of the few open source application which doesn't add a footer link.
Some theme designers add their footer, this ubercart module is the first time I see it done by a module.

I understand the goal : create awareness of ubercart in search engines results by increasing backlinks with selected key phrases. This is a goal, and that's fine. What I don't understand is the extremism of some users who defend the idea of having a link in the footer for ethical reasons.. This is lame thinking, Drupal proved to others (like joomla) that an open source application doesn't need to put a footer per default in order to create good will.

Now, I want to remove the link, and what do I have to do? hack the module file? ok, I'm gonna do it, but please... if ubercart need this to create awareness, it means it's lame. If it's not lame, then awareness will happen. Don't force it on developers!
If you care so much about search engines awareness, then ok, go on with this, but please don't mix any ethical philosophical stuff in it. I don't owe anything to ubercart even if I use 1000 times without mentionning it.

As an attempt to diffuse a "situation" before it evolves, I'd just like to point out that the footer is also displayed via a theme function as mentioned above. This means a dev can keep an override function handy so that the footer never makes it into the HTML at all. I don't think the footer's coming out any time soon, but it can certainly be modified/made nicer just like any other part of the code. I like the idea of an optional button or a simple "Powered by Ubercart." message. And I do agree that it isn't really an ethical question, but I do appreciate all the support from the folks using the cart.

I had no problems to disable the footer, because it is on a theme_ function, so I easily disable it.

The real discussion is about the fact to give the possibility via option to disable the ubercart footer. I think yes because if we begin to add this kind of function, it become more a Creative Common license than a Real free license and this is not the way drupal goes and I think this is not the way ubercart should go in my opinion.

The Iraq example isn't relevant -- it just blows the situation out of proportion. And for the record, I found UberCart by Googling "e-commerce cart" (or something among those lines ). In fact, 80% of web traffic comes from web searches.

You can remove the code from the cart. No ones holding a gun to your head. In the time that has been spent ranting about this, one could have easily removed the footer message.

Anyways, I'd prefer the UB team to spend their time working on bugs and or better features rather than wasting time by adding some option to disable a footer that any one with half a brain could remove by editing a few lines of code.

$0.02

I don't know about drupal 6, but whoever decided to add a default footer link to drupal now is dumb.
I've noticed that recently a footer has been added to drupal.org but that's another thing. But maybe it's linked somehow, I'll see what the footer of drupal 6 says when I'll install it.

Interesting read, I hadn't seen that before. Thanks for posting it

I've done it with one line of code, but it should be an option in the admin at the very least, but that is up to the mind of the ubercart owner.

Beta 2:
In ubercart\uc_store\uc_store.module in function uc_store_footer located at about line 500 :
at the end of the function, find the line:
return theme('uc_store_footer', $message);

and add this line before:
$message = "";

so that it now looks like:
$message = "";
return theme('uc_store_footer', $message);

This is certainly not a nice way to go about it, but it works fine and you only have to remember to change it again whenever you update your version of ubercart and for as long as the owner doesn't provide an easy admin option.

Or you could do it the theme way, I don't know how, but for this you need someone else to give you the code for it, in that case you wouldn't have to hack in the module directly, just in your template file.

There are 3 separate ubercart footer messages as standard. If you want to change the FREE part (which I didn't like for my customers commercial sites) just override it say ecommerce by ubercart powered by Drupal This is a standard footer message selection within ubercart and doesn't detract from the website in anyway.

This is done using Ubercart set-up and doesn't need any code hacking... so is simple until some alternate messages/functions are built into ubercart in later releases.

Look at the bottom of:
http://www.YOURSITE.com/admin/store/settings/store/edit/display

FWIW - I would absolutely not be opposed to having the footer say "E-commerce by Übercart - Powered by Drupal" - it sounds professional, and concise. Thought I'd throw in my .02...

Just an FYI,

It is bad for UBERCART to cloak the CSS. It is much better to remove the footer text than to have CSS that makes the link invisible. It could actually hurt ubercarts rankings. for more please google, "black hat SEO"

Ya,

I actually didnt read the script, I just assumed that it was changing the font color.

again, i hide my head in shame

I said I'd review the options a while back and was able to do it today. Basically, I've seen some corporate stores using the free option and we actually do get a fair amount of search traffic to Ubercart.org for people looking for "free shopping cart software." I hope that's not just someone spoofing us.

So, what I've done is left that in there but added in a few lightweight options (and switched it to radios so you can preview the choices). Feel free to keep it random, choose the smallest one, hide it or remove it to your heart's content. I probably won't review this again unless it's to improve something that's there.

Cheers!

Is the options included in the latest version of ubercart ?

Thanks - will there be an upgrade path to beta5 or will we just install over previous ?

I just updated to Bazaar 837 and the radio button doesn't appear to be working. I check the "Powered by Ubercart" button, but the message at the bottom continues to say "Drupal e-commerce provided by Ubercart." I'm not one that minds the footer being there, just thought I'd mention it.
I know it worked at least a couple versions ago - I believe it was a drop down list.

Just to clarify - does the latest uber have admin option to switch off the footer ?I don't have a problem but I don't see it !

In the latest version of Ubercart (beta 5) You can choose from several options for the footer, but you can not disable it.

I certainly don't have a problem with including ubercart in my footer, but i want it to be said and look in a way I feel works well with my site. Basically, what I would like to know is how can I THEME the footer. I prefer not touching the ubercart module files so that i dont have to remodify the files for every ubercart update...

Thank you.

My only beef about the link is that I have Ubercart installed on my live site as i play with it on my dev site. The live site, by the client's request, does not have a store.

Since I am trying to keep both sites the updated and work with UC in the admin (leaving the menu links unavailable on the live site), the footer is there and the client and visitors are a little confused.

Personally, I have found this project great, and would have no issue talking the client into leaving the link when we take it live; however it has made my dev process a little more difficult.

Just another point of view.

LKA

As someone who develops Drupal code for a living 60+ hours a week and contributes to the Drupal community in many ways (speaking, code, teaching, local meet ups), I think this is total crap that you can't just add an option to turn it off. Honestly. I know you guys work hard on this. We all do. Why don't I put a link on every Drupal 6 installation that uses memcache that says "powered by slantview" since i wrote a patch that ended up in core that enables drop in memcache without core patches? Because that is not how things work. In FOSS we write code because we love it. Because we want to share what we made with others and have them contribute.

Ryan, I know you are a good guy. I met you in Boston, and we had an interesting conversation at the Hard Rock. I am not trying to be lame or a jerk or anything, but I just disagree with this strongly, and disagree with Andy's POV. Open Source is not about "If you don't like it, f*** you." I just think that is the wrong mentality to have. If everyone had that mentality, we'd all be using closed source software, and you wouldn't have Drupal to build Ubercart on.

What if you needed Drupal core to change something for Ubercart to continue working and Dries said, well, I disagree, "F--- you." Wouldn't be so great for the community now would it?

Keep up the good work guys, but come on, seriously? How hard is it to put in a simple radio to turn it off. Actually, that is not a question. It is easy as pie. Why make such a big deal about this. If you don't want to work with the community, then go closed source and don't use any of my code that I contribute to Drupal in your application unless you link to my site. I work really hard on my code and I want recognition. Think about it.

Lastly, if you have people hiding links by changing the color, you are really screwing your seo anyway. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/ Just let them turn it off, and the seo will come.

Patch included.

-steve

Maybe you want to try: yourdomain.com/admin/store/settings/store/edit/display

I have an actual footer that will be in our site when we go live that would look very odd with the standard footer for ubercart, but I fully understand the benefit that would be created by the linkage.

I created a custom block on the sidebar using a variation of this graphic, but it is a good alternative for those of us using a theme modification that makes the standard text link look out of place.

Feel free to use and share, give the team the credit they deserve.

I'd recommend including title text and alt text for your badge if you use it, hopefully someone from the team can give a recommendation of what they would like those to read. (You get better results when all of them are using the same text.)

Glad it helps you out (BTW love the avatar, was wearing a shirt with that bugger on it as I posted the image what are the odds?!)

I used the "e-Commerce By" because the badge right below it is a similar badge that says "Powered By Drupal" with the blue grinning dj dude.

I place ubercart's above drupal, because drupal is the foundation that holds the "house" of ubercart up.

To the visitor, reading down the sidebar and hitting that section it reads:

e-Commerce By
Ubercart

Powered By
Drupal

While still keeping them separate and in their proper place in the layout. See below...

Edit: Just saw someone provided similar code a few articles above - I didn't see it before I posted - I was using an alternate view of the forum, my apologies!

My concern with publishing the footer link is that it lets hackers quickly find ubercart powered sites when they discover a vulnerability. It is for that reason I am making this snippet public.

Add these 3 lines of code to your template.php file

where XXXX is the name of your theme. If you were using the garland theme, the function would be called garland_uc_store_footer()

This solution means you don't have to hack core whenever you update ubercart.

Enjoy.

Michael

Hi Michael, not to nitpick, but according to Drupal coding standards, you should always include a space before the curly brace in a function definition, and NULL, TRUE, and FALSE are always uppercased.

Thanks for sharing this though.

steve

This aint working. Anything changed on Ubercart code?