License tiers

Many digital sellers sell the same file under different licenses: personal use, commercial use for one small business, an extended license for unlimited sales. Inkwell shows a product's license option as license cards instead of small pills: each card names the license, says who it's for, gives its price and lists what it allows (with ticks) and doesn't (with crosses). A Compare licenses link opens a table of every license side by side.

What shoppers see

Above the cards: "License: Personal" (the chosen license) and Compare licenses at the right. Then one card per license, in your option's order:

• a round radio, the license's name in the heading font and its summary ("For one small business");
• the price of that license with the other options as chosen (it updates when the shopper picks another paper size, say);
• up to five lines: up to three allowed lines with ticks, then not allowed lines with crosses.

The chosen card is tinted with the accent and ringed. A Most popular tag (in the sticky-note color, set at a slight angle) sits on the top edge of the license you highlight. Two or three licenses sit side by side once the buy box is wide enough, four or more two to a row, and on narrow screens they stack. A sold-out license has its name struck through, its text in the faint text color on a card in the page color, and says "Sold out" instead of its price, but stays selectable; a combination you don't sell says "Unavailable".

The cards are a real radio group: arrow keys move between licenses and choose them, and screen readers hear each license's name and price, then its summary and lines. Choosing a license updates the price, the "Add to cart · $45.00" button, The details and the page address, exactly as any other option does.

Set it up

1. Add the option: on each product, add an option named License (or Licence), with a value per license ("Personal", "Commercial", "Extended"), and give each variant its price. Attach each license's file and terms to its variant in the Digital Downloads app (chapter 8).
2. Check the option name: Theme settings › Digital products › License option names lists the option names that show as cards ("License, Licence" by default; separate names with commas, capitals don't matter). If your option is called "Usage" or "License type", add that name.
3. Write the license text, once for the whole store: either as license metaobject entries (chapter 7, recommended), or in the Variant picker block's license settings (below).

Other options on the same product (Paper size, Format) keep their pills.

Where a card's text comes from

For each value of the License option, in this order:

1. A license metaobject entry whose Name matches the value (capitals and spaces at the ends don't matter). Its Summary, Allowed and Not allowed fields fill the card. Storefronts access must be on for the definition (chapter 7).
2. The Variant picker block's text for a license whose License 1 name, License 2 name or License 3 name matches the value.
3. By position, only when no value of the option matched any entry or name: the option's first value takes License 1's text, the second License 2's, the third License 3's. A partly matched option never borrows text this way, so a "Commercial" card can't end up with Personal's terms.
4. Nothing matched: the card shows its name and price only.

The Most popular tag goes on the value whose name matches Highlighted license (by position too, when the text was taken by position).

The Variant picker block's license settings

Select the Variant picker block in the product template to edit them. They show on every product that uses the template.

In the allowed and not allowed boxes, write one line per item (the slashes above are line breaks). Leave Highlight label or Highlighted license blank for no tag.

Compare licenses

Compare licenses opens a table built from the same text: one column per license with its current price (the chosen one tinted), one row per allowed item, and a last row, Not allowed, with each license's not-allowed lines. Licenses are cumulative in option order: a row is ticked for the first license that allows it and every license after it, and lines that start with "Everything in" are left out of the rows (the ticks already say it). So write Personal's lines in full, and start Commercial with "Everything in Personal" followed only by what it adds. Under the table, each license has a Choose button (the current one says Chosen): it chooses that license, closes the table and returns to the cards.

On a phone (under 750 pixels wide) the same content is shown one license at a time, stacked: each license's name and price, the rows it allows (ticked) and doesn't (crossed), its not-allowed lines and its Choose button, the chosen one tinted and ringed.

The link shows when Show 'Compare licenses' is on and at least two licenses have lines. Esc, the close button or a click outside closes the table.

The License guide section

The License guide section shows your licenses as cards on any page, without the radios: for the home page (as in the Studio preset) or a page of its own. It has a Compare licenses link that opens the same table (without Choose buttons).

Up to four License blocks: Name ("Personal"), Summary ("For your own use"), Allowed and Not allowed (one per line), Price note ("From $18") and Highlight this license (off). Licenses taken from metaobjects show without a price note or highlight, because the metaobject has no fields for them; use the blocks if you want "From $29" and a Most popular tag. With no licenses, the section shows nothing on your storefront (the editor shows the three defaults as a sample).

A Licenses page: create a page (say "Licenses", handle licenses) and choose the page.licenses template: your page's text, then the License guide with Personal, Commercial and Extended. Link to it from your footer's Help menu and from the product page's License terms row. On a home page, the section is the #licenses anchor, so a button linking to #licenses scrolls to it (the Studio hero's "Compare licenses").