SiteIni Encryption , Beta 2.1.7 and more

Dear users of Webgrab+Plus

2019 will be a year of changes !!
First thanks for the countless hours that our support group dedicated to updating and developing SiteIni's and responding to WG++ users questions and requests. Chapeau!! Especially I want to thank Blackbear199 (who is currently only active in the background) , Matt8861 and our new star KVanc. And not to forget all the contributing users! Feel free to join our support team!

The latest Beta, V2.1.7. It includes updates and bug fixes. And .. starting with this beta and all future releases, the way SiteIni files are handled will change...

The main change is SiteIni encryption !

Last year we had to move away from -everything fully free of charge- to demanding a small donation for certain SiteIni's in a donators 'badge' section of the forum. But even that gave rise to unfair situations. Examples of users contributing just a few €'s for a donators badge and making a business with the our program and the siteini's they could access with it. Again, as before, undesired reactions in the forum. Our support group was therefore forced to use an unwanted deviation of our SiteIni database system. (e.g. by hidden sections) This is clearly not an ideal situation.

The creation of a SiteIni requires hours/weeks to develop and test, and a thorough knowledge of WG++ , the SiteIni script language and web components that not everyone has time, experience or capabilities to acquire. To save all that work and to keep ourselves (and especially our support group) motivated, we are introducing "encrypted SiteIni's" , for these, a decryption user-key is required to get them to work.

Encrypted SiteIni's will be listed and available through download from the epg channel page (mixed with the 'legacy' unencrypted SiteIni's) and through the SiteIni_pack. In special cases this type of 'user-key encrypted' SiteIni's can have an expiry date. This limits its use to a certain period, when that expires an additional contribution might be asked. For some SiteIni's, in which certain new methods are used that its creator wants to keep for himself, a third category of encrypted SiteIni's is available which are encrypted without a user-key. For those, the content is hidden but there is no need for a decryption user-key and a contribution. To sum it up, the following SiteIni's will be around:

- type 1 'Legacy' un-encrypted in clear text
- type 2 Encrypted without user-key
- type 3 Encrypted with user-key
- type 4 Encrypted with user-key and expiry date

Clearly, only type 1 will function with previous WG++ releases and beta's.
However all ( 1 - 4) will function in Beta V2.1.7 and following releases. These versions of WG++ will perform decryption if necessary and if the correct user-key (for type 3 and 4) is found in the config file. These user-keys will be made available on demand and will be subject to a small donation in most cases.

Encrypted SiteIni's are fully compatible with the REX post processor.