Regression testing

Updated to the latest version of the Android app yesterday and it looks like the board is not flipping correctly dependent on whether I'm white or black. This is maybe the 3rd or 4th time I've seen this issue in the Android application. 

As a fellow software developer, I find it surprising that an application in this day and age can contain so many regression bugs. Every few days there seems to be a new release, not with new features but with bug fixes. I certainly haven't noticed this habit with the chess.com site, the site is always quick and responsive, always renders well across various browsers, and I rarely see any bugs. This would certainly indicate a different approach between the 2 teams

There are techniques that should be used to address this situation. A quick google for "automated android testing" reveals a bunch of suitable frameworks for regression testing, including an android driver for the popular selenium. As a paying customer, I would recommend taking the time to implement a suite of regression tests to help improve the quality of the android app.

Thanks, mwjackson. Are you seeing this on all boards or just certain parts of the app (live, or echess, or..?)

I'd like to see a fix for the chess notification icon on the main bar.  It does not reflect the real state of the app after closing the game, as I may have just finished all of my current "My Move" games, and there is nothing waiting, yet the icon remains.  Rather annoying.

I think the bug isn't really the point of this post DeepGreene.

Care to comment on your testing practices instead?

We have and will continue to assess our options, but implementing and maintaining automated testing is far from cost-free, and we don't have a ton of extra development bandwidth for this.

We've recently had excellent and improved results on the iOS front, simply by more actively managing a tight and varied group of beta testers, and I expect we have something to gain by extending this approach to the Android app as well.

I certainly agree there is an initial cost with implementing automated testing, especially when there isn't a lot of experience in the team with it (which I'm assuming is the case).

But given the amount of time you're spending with bug fixes at the moment, I'd guess that the initial cost would soon be outweighed by spending less time on defects and actually delivering new features.

Beta testing groups are all well and good, but you're still relying on humans to test every single part of the application every single time you release, and I would guess that their time is better spent providing feedback on the usability of new features rather than checking that the login button still works.

Anyway food for thought. Good luck with it all.

When you're ready ... let us know. There are some features which make using the app extraordinarily annoying, such as the one I have constantly where it defaults to "Challenges" every time I go to "Play Online" instead of "Current Games".

Another annoyance is that as soon as I finish my last game, and exit the app, the chess piece icon is still on the status bar. I have to manually clear it, or wait several minutes for it to be updated.  Surely it's easy to identify if there are no games left after I make the move on my last game, that the icon could be removed?