Guidelines for Beta Testers

Hello, and welcome to the beta test for MusBook.com! We're so grateful for you taking the time to check out the site before it goes public.

The whole purpose of running the beta test is to make sure that everything is running smoothly by the time MusBook goes live to the general public. So, please be prepared for loads of unfinished things - you'll run into the odd broken link, placeholder text, or error message. That's fine. Just let us know, and we'll fix it.

If you come across anything that looks like it's in the wrong place, please tell us straight away by leaving a comment on this blog. Each day, we'll gather up your comments, add them to the list below, and send them on to the IT department for fixing by the following day.

Please check the list below first, in case someone else has already pointed out what's wrong!

We're already aware of these issues:

[updated 15th July] [*starred issues have gone into development]

• The TEACHER section is not yet working - anything under the 'teacher' tab is just a demo right now
• TWITTER currently updates MusBook status, but MusBook status doesn't currently update Twitter. ALSO 15 JULY - FAULT with twitter connection
  
• Twitter - examine shutout bypass and consider user expectations
• *issue reported: "Trying to click on 'my profile' - sometimes the drop-down menu gets in the way so you end up on Edit Profile info instead" -- this issue occurred in Internet Explorer -- UPDATE -- more space is needed between the two menus
• *Directory problem: "default for a city goes to one place. so if you only put 'london', the last person to have put 'london' is the only person visible because all the other users in that location appear underneath them. so this needs for people with no street addresses to be randomly scattered around a certain radius."
• 1st Dropdown - consider moving 'Twitter'
• *'Forums' dropdown - does 'About MusBook' need to be there?
• Create Forum moderation policy
• Reassess CSS - is font hierarchy consistent throughout site?
• Time Zones - should Perth (Western Australia) and Hobart be added to the time zone list?
• Should user profiles receive an automatic 'Welcome' comment ?
• Twitter. Do those members on Twitter expect/want other users to be able to see their timelines?
• MusBook member with deleted Twitter account still appears on list of users with Twitter accounts, despite no longer having one
• Submenu bar and other bits and pieces are not visible when viewing in Safari.
• there's a problem with the 'what's new' recent activity feed on the front page of the site. i don't know what it is. it's not showing up to date - like bang up to date last few minutes - updates.
• two users have reported to me of outgoing friend requests to other users that they don't remember adding. keep eye out for this in case any other users report same

• composers forums - reset as per agreed
• comments on a comment... this shows up in activity feed (at least on the user_home.php even if not currently on the front page!) but there is no email notificaiotn to the person who originally made the comment. does this matter?
• we need a twitter handle box for the individual user type to go in the bit where you have the 'about me' and the 'website' boxes. can this be linked so that you can click on it to follow someone?

• when using share buttons at the bottom of blog posts to share to facebook (not tested on others) the title and content syndicated across to FB in the thumbnail is standard musbook title page text, not title of blogpost/article - makes it irrelevant for readers on external site. needs investigation [response: this will be resolved when title tags are fixed] - 15 JULY CHECK TO SEE if this has now been resolved
  
• Is there a possibility of notification via email when a new discussion or reply is added?
• contact form is not working
• country choice in signup/profile info should be DROPDOWN not free entry, because it creates search inconsistencies. eg i have put my country as 'england' in my profile, but other people have put 'uk'. so if i want to find all violinists in england, it shows me in the search results but not violinists living in the uk who are in england. similarly, if you search for violinists in the 'uk' it won't show anyone listed as being in 'england' or 'wales' or 'scotland'. Therefore we need a drop down - and perhaps one that eliminates UK and lists only england, wales, scotland, n.ireland etc. There are likely other countries with similar problems.
• 'My Videos' needs to be next to 'Video Feed' on the 'My Apps' tab, or indeed have a tab of its own, and--there needs to be intuitive links to 'Add Video', 'Add Blog' etc etc, on the relevant landing pages.
• Clarification needed to prevent users posting on their own walls rather than other peoples'?
• check  title pages and meta descriptions across whole site now working correctly