Testing the release

At one point in the development of this android software, I had gotten fairly heavily into testing tools available for the Android. In the interests of expediency, I got away from this a bit - I felt I was spending to much time on the various tools for really trivial tests, and not nearly enough on getting the development done.

However, as we approach the release phase, it's time to pay the piper. I would like to do some reasonable testing before publishing the product. I would prefer to release the free product first, but the problem is that it has to have a link to encourage people to purchase. Plus, you always want to make a good first impression.

So, the question is, do I build automated tests at this point? Another problem I had with it was that as the app sort of evolved, the tests had to evolve with it. I didn't want to spend precious time developing tests which were being for the most part discarded. But now things have kind of settled down, maybe it's worth giving it another shot?

Another issue I need to resolve is that - well, I didn't bring my usb wire today. This means I need to test on the emulator, which is so slow to restart, and which I haven't run the app successfully on for a while.

Well, first let's see if we can get it running on the emulator. While waiting for it to start up, we'll start creating some tests on spreadsheets.

Actually, it crashes on the emulator - something about the database image? Anyway, I prefer to test it on the actual device.

So, there will be no automated testing for now. I'll go to my usual technique - create a spread sheet that lists the condition, test, the expected result and the actual result.

Ok, this has been production. I've already discovered a few bugs, including:

Crash on last number

When you restart on the question display, it finishes the last question, then acts as if the quiz just started - so you get one extra question. I had decided to let it restart the level when the program was killed, but I don't like the extra question.

On the autoplay mode, it should be ignoring the start and stop numbers and just play all the words available; but it's not doing that.

And the starting numbers on install should be 1-5, not 1 to the end of the words. Otherwise, no one will understand the level mode.

When using the trackball and selecting the answer - it always chooses the first answer as correct - but only on trackball, not touch.

When using the countdown timer, when going to the home screen, it starts another timer, but the old one is still running. I think I need to call cancel timer on the onDestroy routine.

Finally, I need to give a url for the artist's flicker site, as she has agreed to let me display her paintings in the program in exchange for crediting her.

Ok; that does it for now. Off to fix these bugs!