Hellion Shortcode Digital Sales

Hellion Shortcode Digital Sales is a lightweight way to sell a digital product (an ebook, a template, a license file, anything downloadable) without setting up a full store. Add a product, paste a shortcode on any existing page or post, and customers can buy without ever leaving that page or going through a cart. Core scenario, no paid add-on required:

1. Create a product (price, one file, optional custom checkout fields).
2. Add [hellion_product id="123"] to any page or post — inline or as a popup.
3. Customer pays with Stripe or PayPal, right there on the page.
4. They land on a protected, time-/count-limited download link and get the same link by email. You get an email too.

Features

• Shortcode-based checkout, inline or popup, no page builder or block editor lock-in
• Stripe and PayPal, called directly (no bundled SDK, so it won't clash with other plugins that also bundle payment SDKs)
• Protected file delivery: download links are token-based, not a public URL, with a configurable download-count and expiry limit per order
• Custom checkout fields (text / email / textarea / checkbox / select), configurable globally or per product
• Editable email templates (WYSIWYG) with placeholder tags for customer name, product, download link, order details, and more
• Orders screen with search, status filter, manual status/limit changes, and per-order details
• Sales analytics (revenue, orders, downloads) with day/week/month presets and a custom date range with period-over-period comparison
• Built to be extended: a documented set of actions/filters lets add-ons hook in without touching core files, and third-party add-ons don't need to modify this plugin's code or database tables

What this plugin does not include Coupons, multiple file versions per product, subscriptions/recurring billing, multi-currency, VAT/tax reporting, license-key delivery, abandoned-cart recovery, and additional payment gateways are out of scope for this free plugin — the plugin registers real extension points for these, so they can be added by add-ons without forking core.

1. Upload the plugin files to /wp-content/plugins/hellion-shortcode-digital-sales, or install through the Plugins screen in WordPress directly.
2. Activate the plugin through the "Plugins" screen.
3. Go to Hellion Shortcode Digital Sales → Settings and set your currency and at least one payment gateway (Stripe and/or PayPal).
4. Go to Hellion Shortcode Digital Sales → Products and add a product with a price and a file.
5. Copy the shortcode shown on the product and paste it into any page or post.

If your server runs Nginx rather than Apache, the plugin's automatic .htaccess protection for uploaded product files does not apply — add a rule to your server config to deny direct access to wp-content/uploads/hellion-shortcode-digital-sales-files/, for example: location /wp-content/uploads/hellion-shortcode-digital-sales-files/ { deny all; }

0.1.3

• Fix: browsers could offer to autofill a saved or generated password into the Stripe/PayPal secret key fields, silently overwriting the key you entered.

0.1.2

• Fix: checkout field labels with non-Latin characters (e.g. Cyrillic) were saved incorrectly.

0.1.1

• Fix: the product edit screen's file upload never worked — the form was missing the multipart/form-data encoding required for file uploads, so the selected file never reached the server. Product files now upload correctly.
• Fix: the shortcode for a product was never actually shown anywhere, despite the Installation instructions telling you to copy it. It now appears on the product edit screen once the product is published.
• If a product file upload does fail (oversized file, server permissions, etc.), an admin notice now explains why instead of failing silently.

0.1.0

• Initial release.