Testing Guide

This is a guide for testers. If you've stumbled on this page and are not a tester, please feel free to sign up here.

Preliminaries

Go to the About page, if you haven't already, and see what Lottery Proto is all about. Then come back to this page to begin testing.

Invites

At the moment, testing is open only to invitees. Getting an invite is simple — just go to the Sign Up Page and fill out the form.

Installing the app

The app is available only on iOS (Apple) and Android devices. It is currently not listed on the respective play stores.

Install on iOS

The app resides in Apple's Testflight program. After you've signed up to test, an invitation will come from Apple instructing you how to install the product. A couple of notes:

You will need an Apple ID. If you don't have one, Apple will prompt you to create one from the link.
Before installing the app, you will need to install the Testflight app (available in the Play Store app), which will then give you access to Lottery Proto. (The Testflight app is really tiny — it uses up hardly any resources on your device.)
Subsequent/update installations are automatic — you will be notified by e-mail when they occur.

Install on Android

The app resides in Google Play's Internal Testing program.

A few notes:

You will need a Google account to access it (an e-mail account works fine, it's easy to set up.)
Before registering, you will need to put your device in "developer mode". Open the PlayStore app on the device you will use to test, navigate to settings, and click on Play Store Version 7 times. The device will acknowledge that you are a developer.
In the Settings page, expand General and enable the toggle for Internal app sharing.
After registering, you will be sent a link via email. Click on the link and you'll be prompted to "Accept Invitation". You will be provided a download link which will redirect you to the download page on your Play Store app.

Summary/Future

I realize these are somewhat onerous and involved procedures, but for the moment, I need to constrain testers so that I can resolve any show-stopper issues before widening the release.

When I'm confident the app is working reasonably well, I'll widen the testing base and it shouldn't be so onerous to access the apps.

Notes

Some things to be aware of while you're testing.

Product Name: Lottery Proto is a working title. I don't know if it will be the final name, although coming up with a name that alludes to it's uniqueness is difficult. It's hard to summarize in a couple of words.; I am open to suggestions.
Company Name: Currently, the app is registered as a private developer project in my personal name. Eventually, it will be registered in the company name (Aphorica, Inc). At that time, you may have to re-install the app if you wish to continue using it.
Updates/Data Retention: Ideally, updates should not affect your data. That's the target behavior.; However, since this is a product in testing, you can expect some instabilities — expect to lose your data in updates. If you need to retain information, duplicate it in another form, somewhere else.; Hopefully, that won't happen, but you have to plan for it.
Paid Features (Future): Some of the features will be pay in the future, at least the Disable/Enable Ads and Analyses features (accessible from the main menu.) Right now, for testing, they are not. You can disable and enable ads freely (but I would appreciate leaving them enabled for a bit as part of the test), and you can go into the "Analyses" feature freely.
Ads: At the moment, ads are test ads. By the time you get the testing version, they may be enabled so that you receive real ads. Again, you can turn them on or off with the menu selection.
Analyses: Much more to do, here. I'll be adding more analyses features in the future. For now, the only feature implemented is to check your numbers for matches against the game history for history-enabled games (currently Powerball and MegaMillions.) I'll create a road-map document in the future.

Test Coverage

Basically, I primarily need you to install and run the app, and see how it goes. Send feedback to the email in the footer, below, or via the app-store instructions, if there are any.

Specifically, I'm looking for feedback in the following areas:

Crashes/Hangs: Obviously, either of these are show-stoppers. Please try to relate exactly what you were doing when the crash/hang happened.
Overall Impression: Summary experience over all. Good, bad, meh?
Ability to find and install app?: I realize this is a bit difficult during the initial testing phase. It will smooth out in production.
Initial invocation: Was the opening sequence of dialogs sufficient for you to get up and running?
Appearance: How does it look, to you? Still working on some styling issues — definitely open to suggestions, here.
Menu/Features Access: Were you able to access the main features via the drop-down menu?
Comprehension/Understanding: Did you find the app confusing, or are you unsure of some of the features and how they operate? What do you think would make it less so?
And... Did you win the lottery!?? :)
: Whoopie! Give me a notice...