Sitegrinder workaround found

[Gravity Traveler]

Hello all! Please bump this where it needs to go...

In searching for a solution to cracking the demo protection of Sitegrinder 2 by MediaLab (Sitegrinder is a photoshop plugin that transforms layers into a website), I stumbled upon some archived posts from this board that I can't seem to find any longer. Anyways, they steered me in the right direction, so I thought I'd share some of my results. This is actually a ridiculously simple workaround, and though it doesn't modify any code or require any reversing, I thought you all might appreciate it none-the-less because there is no known crack for this program.

Getting right to it, when you click on "build" in the Sitegrinder interface, the plugin works all sorts of tedious cutting, copying and layering magic, builds the css and vomits out the html. A very handy thing that photoshop does, is record all the steps the plugin took in the History. After setting my history to record 300 history states (my site had a bit of images), I noticed that "New Pattern Fill" was one of the first steps taken by Sitegrinder, in which the watermark layer is created. Digging a little deeper (with the help of previous posts on this board), I discovered that the plugin temporarily creates then deletes a photoshop pattern file called "SGlogo.pat" in the directory of

"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\SiteGrinderData". (It happens to be "Administrator" folder on my machine, but it would be in the folder of your windows user name.) It also creates a file called "temp.pat" but that won't concern us.

The simple workaround? In photoshop, create a large transparent canvas (a new file), say 1024x768, and place 1 black pixel in any corner. Turn the opacity of the layer down to 1% and save it as a pattern (look up photoshop tuts on how to do this). Name this pattern "SGlogo.pat" and place it in the abovementioned folder, where Sitegrinder would have created it. Set the file's attributes to Read-only, and you're done! Sitegrinder will use your pattern in place of creating it's own, leaving you with a 100% working website with NO watermark. I forgot to mention that I am using the now current version of Sitegrinder, which is 2.1.1_r942. Undoubtedly, Medialab will curtail this workaround in following releases, so use it while you can.

So, if this was helpful, share it! (I wouldn't mind a mention ), And thanks to all who contributed to finding this solution!

~Gravity Traveler

Edited January 13, 2009 by Gravity Traveler

[quosego]

Nice thinking..

Not that I use photoshop but it's prolly going to be handy for other people..

PS: Moved it to tutorials..

Edited January 13, 2009 by quosego

[enhzflep]

Great work Gravity Traveler.

I did some work with this plugin a while back now. Perhaps you're referring to this thread?

[Gravity Traveler]

Great work Gravity Traveler.

I did some work with this plugin a while back now. Perhaps you're referring to this thread?

Yeah, there it is! Couldn't find it again except googling for it. Rock on, thanks for the work you did on it

[cuties]

haha nice finding

[commonjunks]

Thank you for this .

[heavydelta]

Wow, I've belabored over a solution for this piece of software for many months without results. Thanks for enlightening all of us over how simple the solution can actually be, once we look at things from outside the box, so to speak. Great work!

Edited February 10, 2009 by heavydelta

[heavydelta]

Hello all! Please bump this where it needs to go...

In searching for a solution to cracking the demo protection of Sitegrinder 2 by MediaLab (Sitegrinder is a photoshop plugin that transforms layers into a website), I stumbled upon some archived posts from this board that I can't seem to find any longer. Anyways, they steered me in the right direction, so I thought I'd share some of my results. This is actually a ridiculously simple workaround, and though it doesn't modify any code or require any reversing, I thought you all might appreciate it none-the-less because there is no known crack for this program.

Getting right to it, when you click on "build" in the Sitegrinder interface, the plugin works all sorts of tedious cutting, copying and layering magic, builds the css and vomits out the html. A very handy thing that photoshop does, is record all the steps the plugin took in the History. After setting my history to record 300 history states (my site had a bit of images), I noticed that "New Pattern Fill" was one of the first steps taken by Sitegrinder, in which the watermark layer is created. Digging a little deeper (with the help of previous posts on this board), I discovered that the plugin temporarily creates then deletes a photoshop pattern file called "SGlogo.pat" in the directory of

"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\SiteGrinderData". (It happens to be "Administrator" folder on my machine, but it would be in the folder of your windows user name.) It also creates a file called "temp.pat" but that won't concern us.

The simple workaround? In photoshop, create a large transparent canvas (a new file), say 1024x768, and place 1 black pixel in any corner. Turn the opacity of the layer down to 1% and save it as a pattern (look up photoshop tuts on how to do this). Name this pattern "SGlogo.pat" and place it in the abovementioned folder, where Sitegrinder would have created it. Set the file's attributes to Read-only, and you're done! Sitegrinder will use your pattern in place of creating it's own, leaving you with a 100% working website with NO watermark. I forgot to mention that I am using the now current version of Sitegrinder, which is 2.1.1_r942. Undoubtedly, Medialab will curtail this workaround in following releases, so use it while you can.

So, if this was helpful, share it! (I wouldn't mind a mention ), And thanks to all who contributed to finding this solution!

~Gravity Traveler

I tried the new 2.1.2 update to Sitegrinder today. It appears that MediaLab has "fixed" this little workaround by creating a random .pat instead of the SGlogo.pat of previous versions, but it still works with 2.1.1.

Edited February 25, 2009 by heavydelta

[Gravity Traveler]

New it would happen eventually... I'll bet you can find a solution though playing with usage rights to the "patterns" folder, maybe making the folder read-only so it can't create the patterns? I dunno, but it's a starting point. Maybe there's a way to make a photoshop script hook that automatically replaces the pattern when the sitegrinder program is running? Alternately, a GREAT way to fix this is to compare the new version with the old, find the new bit of code that generates the random .pat, and create a simple patch Well, it's constant adventure! Happy cracking

Edited March 8, 2009 by Gravity Traveler

[Departure]

I just downloaded sitegrinder because it sounds the exact thing I need and would come in very useful, I will try out your ideas once installed, If anyone finds a solution to this please post it here, and ill do the same if I find something...

[scooterbfith]

Hello all! Please bump this where it needs to go...

In searching for a solution to cracking the demo protection of Sitegrinder 2 by MediaLab (Sitegrinder is a photoshop plugin that transforms layers into a website), I stumbled upon some archived posts from this board that I can't seem to find any longer. Anyways, they steered me in the right direction, so I thought I'd share some of my results. This is actually a ridiculously simple workaround, and though it doesn't modify any code or require any reversing, I thought you all might appreciate it none-the-less because there is no known crack for this program.

Getting right to it, when you click on "build" in the Sitegrinder interface, the plugin works all sorts of tedious cutting, copying and layering magic, builds the css and vomits out the html. A very handy thing that photoshop does, is record all the steps the plugin took in the History. After setting my history to record 300 history states (my site had a bit of images), I noticed that "New Pattern Fill" was one of the first steps taken by Sitegrinder, in which the watermark layer is created. Digging a little deeper (with the help of previous posts on this board), I discovered that the plugin temporarily creates then deletes a photoshop pattern file called "SGlogo.pat" in the directory of

"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\SiteGrinderData". (It happens to be "Administrator" folder on my machine, but it would be in the folder of your windows user name.) It also creates a file called "temp.pat" but that won't concern us.

The simple workaround? In photoshop, create a large transparent canvas (a new file), say 1024x768, and place 1 black pixel in any corner. Turn the opacity of the layer down to 1% and save it as a pattern (look up photoshop tuts on how to do this). Name this pattern "SGlogo.pat" and place it in the abovementioned folder, where Sitegrinder would have created it. Set the file's attributes to Read-only, and you're done! Sitegrinder will use your pattern in place of creating it's own, leaving you with a 100% working website with NO watermark. I forgot to mention that I am using the now current version of Sitegrinder, which is 2.1.1_r942. Undoubtedly, Medialab will curtail this workaround in following releases, so use it while you can.

So, if this was helpful, share it! (I wouldn't mind a mention ), And thanks to all who contributed to finding this solution!

~Gravity Traveler

Any one know where this file lives on a mac?

[architekton]

it seems you find "the way". Anyway.. i find a crack for this awsome plugin in the last days.

[roddie]

it seems you find "the way". Anyway.. i find a crack for this awsome plugin in the last days.

hope you dont mind sharing it!