Fondetto help
Fondetto builds your whole Shopify store from a short brand brief and your own products: the theme's colours and fonts, the home, product, collection, About, FAQ and Contact pages, the header, footer and menus, product copy and translations. It works on an unpublished copy of your theme, so your live store does not change until you publish that copy yourself. This page covers setup, every page of the app, the questions merchants ask most, and what to do when something looks wrong.
What you need
- A Shopify plan with the Online Store: Basic or higher. Shopify's Starter plan has no theme editor, so Fondetto cannot build on it.
- Shopify's free Horizon theme (or another theme of the Horizon family from the Theme Store) in your theme library. If you don't have it, the app links to it; adding it is free and does not change your live store.
- Room for one more theme in your theme library (Shopify allows 20 on most plans).
Vintage themes, paid themes from other designers and headless stores are not supported yet.
Getting started
- Choose a plan. Starter or Pro, each with a 14-day free trial. Shopify bills it on your Shopify invoice.
- Check the requirements. The Home page checks the list above and says exactly what to do if something is missing.
- Fill in the brand brief (about 5 minutes): your store name, what you sell and who it is for, your promise, facts about your products, the tone, words to avoid, your main language, and your logo or a text wordmark.
- Pick a design direction. Fondetto shows three: each with a colour palette, a pair of fonts from your theme and a home page layout. Choosing one is free.
- Build. Press Build my store. Fondetto copies your theme into a draft named after your store ("[store name] by Fondetto (draft)") and writes the design, pages, menus and product copy into it. Progress is shown step by step; you can leave the page and come back. If a build stops, press Resume.
- Review and preview. Open each page in Shopify's own preview, or press Customize in theme editor to change anything by hand. New product text is shown next to your current text; nothing on a live product changes until you press Apply.
- Go live. The Go live checklist shows what will change on your live store. You publish the draft theme with Shopify's own Publish button; Fondetto never publishes it for you.
Pages of the app
| Page | What you do there |
|---|---|
| Home | Requirements check, your trial or plan, and what to do next |
| Brand brief | The facts every text is written from. Change it at any time; later builds and edits use the new version. |
| Design | Choose one of three design directions, or ask for three new ones |
| Build | Start a whole-store build and follow its progress |
| Review | Preview links for each page, the Customize in theme editor button, and the Go live checklist |
| Product copy | Write descriptions, search engine titles and descriptions and image alt text for chosen products; review and apply them |
| Landing pages | Make a page for a campaign or a product from your brief and chosen products |
| History | Every change Fondetto made, newest first, with Undo |
| Plan | Your plan, what you have used this month, the date it resets, and changing or cancelling the plan |
| Help | This guide in short, and a summary to copy for support |
Changing things after the build
- Change a section by typing. On the Review page, pick a page and a section and type what you want ("a warmer tone", "add a question about shipping"). Only that section is rewritten. These edits are not counted against your plan; there is a limit of 60 an hour per store.
- Undo. Before every change, Fondetto keeps a copy of what it replaces. Undo any build or edit on the History page; the last 30 versions are kept.
- If you edited the draft yourself in the theme editor, Fondetto shows which parts changed and asks before writing over them, and keeps a copy of your edits first.
- If you already published the draft, Fondetto never writes to your live theme. The next change goes to a new draft copy that you publish when you are ready.
Languages
Fondetto writes in your store's main language; it does not translate from English. For each other language you have published in Settings > Languages, it adds Shopify's own translations of everything it wrote, so Translate & Adapt and Shopify Markets keep working. Prices, numbers and SKUs are never translated. Turning languages on asks Shopify for permission to write translations.
What Fondetto writes, and what it does not
Fondetto writes only from the facts in your brief and your products. Where a page needs a fact you haven't given (for example a returns window), it writes "[add your ...]" and marks it on the Review page. It does not write reviews, ratings, testimonials, "sold" counts, stock counters, trust badges or statistics, and it does not make health or medical claims. Anything that looks like one is highlighted and left out until you approve it.
It does not write your legal policies: Shopify's own policy pages (Settings > Policies) are free and kept up to date, and Fondetto links to them from the footer. It does not edit your theme's code, add apps or scripts to your storefront, or copy other stores.
Plans and billing
- Starter and Pro are billed by Shopify on your Shopify invoice. No fees on your sales and no charges for usage.
- Each plan has monthly limits on whole-store builds, product copy, landing pages and extra languages (see the Plan page). At a limit, the app tells you the date it resets; nothing stops working and nothing extra is charged.
- Each store gets one free trial; reinstalling continues the same trial.
- To cancel, press Cancel plan on the Plan page, or uninstall the app (Settings, Apps, Fondetto, Uninstall). Shopify stops billing at once. What Fondetto built stays in your store.
- If you ask within 7 days of a charge, we refund it without questions.
Staff
Fondetto works with your store's own connection to Shopify, so every staff member you allow to use it (Settings > Users in your Shopify admin) sees and changes the same brief, drafts and history.
Frequently asked questions
Will my live store change while I try it? No. Fondetto builds on an unpublished copy of your theme. Your live store changes only when you press Publish on that copy in Shopify, or press Apply on new product text.
Do I keep the store if I stop paying or uninstall? Yes. Everything Fondetto builds is ordinary Shopify content: the theme's own settings and templates, pages, menus, product text and translations. Nothing of Fondetto runs on your storefront, so nothing breaks or disappears.
Can I still edit everything myself? Yes, in Shopify's theme editor and in your Shopify admin, as with any store.
Does it slow my store down? Fondetto adds no apps, scripts or code to your storefront. Your store runs on Shopify's own theme.
Does it work with my current theme? Version 1 builds on Shopify's free Horizon family of themes. Your current theme stays live and unchanged until you publish the new draft.
What happens when I uninstall? Your plan and your access end at once and Shopify stops billing for Fondetto. Nothing is removed from your store. Shopify asks us to delete your store's data 48 hours later, and we do, within 30 days.
When something looks wrong
- Open Help in the app and copy the summary for support.
- Email support@nolarine.com with the summary and what you expected to happen. A named person replies within one business day (the same business day on Pro).
Uninstalling
Uninstalling removes the app from your admin, ends your access at once and cancels your plan (Shopify stops billing). Nothing Fondetto built is removed: the draft theme stays in your theme library (delete it there in Online Store > Themes if you don't want it), and your pages, menus, product text and translations stay as they are. The undo history is in the app, so undo anything you want undone before you uninstall. 48 hours after you uninstall, Shopify tells us to delete your store's data, and we do, within 30 days.
Accessibility
The admin uses Shopify's own components. We aim for WCAG 2.2 level AA on the admin pages and this website, and every palette Fondetto proposes for your store is checked for WCAG AA text contrast before it is shown (last checked PLACEHOLDER date of the axe and keyboard check on the live app). Known limits: the admin has not been tested with a screen reader. If something doesn't work for you or your customers with assistive technology, email support@nolarine.com: we treat it as a bug.