Tester Walkthrough — Favorites

Updated: 2026-09-05 10:46 ET · On the Page Readiness screen, look for: Favorites — save / list / remove / empty state (requires login) and Home Preview — heart-toggle test surface (works logged out)

TLDR: 10 checks covering the full life of a favorite — trying to view Favorites while logged out (should send you to log in), browsing without hearts showing when logged out, saving a magazine article and a menu item once logged in, seeing them on the Favorites screen, removing them until the list is empty, what happens if a saved favorite's content disappears, and confirming a saved document actually opens for real — plus that favorites survive a full log-out / log-in cycle. Favorites went live 2026-08-17, so saved items are now real rows on your account that survive a restart, and document sets went live 2026-08-17 when the backend registered that item type — so category rows are saveable again (Check 4b).

Before you start

• Start out logged out. You can check or reset this any time using Auth Status / Log Out on the Page Readiness screen — see the Tester Guide if you're not sure how to get there.
• You don't need to pick a data source. As of 2026-07-09 the screens choose their own data behind the scenes (the old Mock data / Live data switch is gone from the Page Readiness screen — it now lives on the FTDT dashboard and only affects FTDT scenario testing). As of 2026-08-17 Favorites runs on the live service — a favorite you save is a real row on your account and survives a force-quit, which it did not before. Check 7 (a favorite whose content disappeared) still needs an engineer's help to remove the underlying content.
• SAMPLE rows deliberately have no heart. Rows labelled SAMPLE on Home Preview are seeded on the device and exist nowhere on the server, so saving one would leave a permanent row your account can never resolve. A missing heart there is the expected state, not a bug. Everything else — documents, menu items, document categories — is saveable.
• MEC feed tiles save as links. As of 2026-09-03 a tile or quick link on My MEC (PDR / DYK / QRG, committee pages) saves as a shortcut to wherever it goes: on Favorites it renders as a card-sm row with the title it had when you saved it, and tapping it opens the same destination the tile did. Earlier that day those hearts were briefly hidden after they were found to write rows your account could never open (Task AB#2271). A card with no destination (a plain text card) still shows no heart. Member Resources tiles and every document surface are unaffected.
• Where to save a favorite: use a screen showing real content — Member Resources (menu item cards) or a document list under Documents. If Home Preview shows only SAMPLE rows, your account's ALP MAG catalogue is empty and there is nothing favoritable on that screen.
• You'll move between two screens: Home Preview (where you'll add favorites) and Favorites (where you'll view and remove them) — both are rows on the Page Readiness screen.

Checks

1 · Try to open Favorites while logged out

Steps: While logged out, open the Page Readiness screen → tap Favorites.

What you should see: You're taken straight to the log-in screen — you never see the Favorites list itself.

Something's wrong if: You see the Favorites screen at all before being asked to log in — even an empty one.

2 · Browse Home Preview while logged out

Steps: While still logged out, open Home Preview from the Page Readiness screen.

About the card photos: every article currently shows one of a few stock pilot/cockpit photos, so covers repeat — that's expected. The backend doesn't supply document imagery yet (every document in the live feed arrives without an image), so the app substitutes placeholder art rather than empty boxes. The titles, order, dates, and links are the real live feed when you're signed in. Real cover images light up automatically once the backend ships them — no app update needed.

What you should see: On first open the page may flash gray shimmer placeholders while it loads — that's the intended loading treatment, same as the real Home screen. Once loaded: the ALPA Magazine carousel and the category rows beneath it (Canada Limits, From The President, Press Release, …) display normally, but there is no heart icon anywhere on the page — not even a grayed-out one.

Something's wrong if: You spot a heart on any card or category row while logged out. Saving a favorite requires being logged in, so those hearts shouldn't appear at all until you are. The heart in the top navigation bar is a different thing and is meant to be there — it is a shortcut to the Favorites screen, and logged out it sends you to log in, exactly as in Check 1.

3 · Log in and save a document as a favorite

Steps: Log in (via Auth Status or the normal login screen). Open Documents for your MEC, scroll to Latest Documents, and tap the heart on any row.

Why not Home Preview? You can use it if its cards are real. But if they say SAMPLE, that account's ALP MAG catalogue is empty and the cards are seeded placeholders with no heart at all (see "Before you start") — the Latest Documents rows are always real, so the check works on any account.

Before — logged in, nothing saved yet

After — the heart fills in solid navy

What you should see: The heart fills in solid navy right away — no waiting, no page reload needed. (Earlier builds filled it red; navy is the design-correct state as of 2026-07-09.)

Something's wrong if: Tapping the heart does nothing, or it fills in but doesn't "stick" — leave the page and come back to check; it should still show filled in.

Note (updated 2026-07-16): the category rows below the carousel now show hearts too once you're logged in — tapping one saves that category as a shortcut to its document list (that's Check 4b). Logged out they show no hearts, same as everything else.

4 · Save a menu item as a favorite

Steps: While logged in, open Member Resources and tap the heart on any card (e.g. Membership Card or Orange Card). Then open Favorites and confirm it is listed. Clean up by removing it when you're done.

What you should see: The heart fills in immediately and the item appears on the Favorites screen. Unparked 2026-08-17 — this check was previously skipped for want of a screen with saveable menu items; Member Resources is that screen.

Something's wrong if: You spot a heart that's visible but does nothing when tapped, anywhere — a heart only appears on items that can actually be saved, so a dead one is a bug.

4b · Save a category as a favorite

Steps: While logged in, open Documents for your MEC and tap the heart on any category tile (e.g. Contract). The same hearts appear on the category rows under the Home Preview carousel if that account has them.

A saved category — the rest stay outlined

What you should see: The heart fills in immediately, same as the document hearts in Check 3. On the Favorites screen the category appears as a smaller titled row with an icon. Tapping the row itself (not its heart) opens that category's document list; tapping its heart on the Favorites screen removes it.

Something's wrong if: The heart doesn't stick (leave the page and come back to check), the row on the Favorites screen shows a raw internal key instead of the category's friendly name, or tapping the row takes you anywhere other than that category's document list.

Note: this check was parked between 2026-08-17 and the backend registering the document-set item type later that day. If you see no hearts on category rows, you are on a build from that window — update before filing a bug.

5 · View your Favorites

Steps: Open the Favorites screen (now that you're logged in).

While it loads you'll see shimmering placeholder rows. That's the intended loading treatment, the same one Home Preview uses — not a stuck screen and not an empty list. Wait for either your saved items or the "No Favorites Yet" message before judging what's there.

What you should see: Everything you saved is listed — the document from Check 3 and the menu item from Check 4 — each with a filled-in heart, which on this screen is also how you remove it. A document card with no description or photo is expected when the feed itself supplies none: the card mirrors what the backend sends (a known data-quality item, AB#2247), so judge it on the title being right.

Something's wrong if: A saved item is missing from the list, or shows up looking like the wrong kind of item.

A raw-looking title is the document's own. Some live documents are published with an internal-looking name (e.g. mec-grievance-pbs-ord-bid) instead of a readable one. If the Favorites row shows the same string the document list showed, that is the backend's data, not a favorites bug — it belongs on the AB#2247 data-quality list.

6 · Remove a favorite

Steps: On the Favorites screen, remove each saved item until none remain. There are two ways to do it, and both must work on every row:

• Tap the heart on the row.
• Flick the row left. The row slides over to reveal a red trash zone on its right edge; tap the trash. Flick the row right, or tap the row itself, to close the tray without removing.

What you should see: Each heart tap or trash tap removes that item immediately — no confirmation popup, it just disappears. Once the list is empty, you'll see a "No Favorites Yet" message.

Something's wrong if: An item stays on screen after you tap its heart or its trash zone, flicking a row left reveals nothing (AB#2678 — that was the shipped behaviour on build 20260905.1 and earlier), or the "No Favorites Yet" message doesn't appear once the list is actually empty.

Same gesture as Flight Finder. The swipe tray is the one the Saved Flights, Saved Searches and Recent Searches lists use — a flick, not a drag: the row does not follow your finger, it snaps open once the flick is long enough (about 40 px sideways).

7 · A saved favorite that no longer exists

Steps: This one needs a bit of setup you can't do yourself in the app — ask an engineer to create a favorite for your account that points to something that's since been deleted or removed. Once that's set up, open the Favorites screen and tap that item.

What you should see: The item still shows up in your list by its saved title, but tapping it takes you to a friendly "Off the Radar!" page instead of a dead link or an error.

Something's wrong if: Tapping it shows a blank screen, crashes the app, or shows a raw error page instead of the "Off the Radar" page.

9 · Favorites survive logging out and back in

Steps: While logged in, save an article as a favorite on Home Preview (as in Check 3) and note its title. Then log out via Auth Status / Log Out, log back in with the same account, and open the Favorites screen. Clean up by removing the favorite when you're done.

What you should see: The Favorites list comes back showing exactly what you had saved before the log-out — same item, same title — because the list is re-fetched from your account, not remembered by the screen. Nothing extra appears and nothing is missing.

Something's wrong if: The list comes back empty, shows different items than you saved, or shows items belonging to a different account.

Note: as of 2026-08-17 this runs against the live service, so it now proves the server round-trip — and you can force-quit the app as part of this check if you want a stronger test. Favorites no longer reset on restart; if they do, that is a real failure, not the old sample-data behaviour.

What's already covered by automated tests

These run with the UI suite (BlazorWalkthroughTests), so a regression should be caught before it reaches you. Run the checks by hand anyway — the automation checks the behavior is present, not that it reads well:

• Check 1 — opening Favorites while logged out redirects to the log-in screen (Favorites_WhileLoggedOut_RedirectsToLogin)
• Checks 3/5/6 — the full save → view-as-hero-card → remove cycle for a document favorite, including that the heart sticks across navigation (Favorites_AuthenticatedDocumentCycle_SaveViewRemove) — self-skips without ALPA_UITEST_USERNAME/ALPA_UITEST_PASSWORD set

What this checks, overall

The complete save → view → remove → broken-link cycle for favorites, that the heart icon never shows up unless you're logged in, that trying to view your Favorites while logged out sends you to log in first, that saved documents lead to real content rather than placeholders, and that your favorites come back intact after a full log-out / log-in cycle.

What's not covered yet

• There's a more compact, list-style view of favorites elsewhere in the design that isn't covered here — its heart icon doesn't work yet.
• Removing a favorite is immediate and final in this walkthrough — there's currently no "undo" option after you remove one.
• Home Preview is a stand-in screen used just for testing — it's not the final, real Home screen design (that's still being worked on separately).
• Menu-item favorites are testable again on Member Resources, and document-set (category) favorites work as of 2026-08-17 — both were parked at various points and neither is now.
• The rows under the carousel are document categories — tapping one opens that category's article list, and as of 2026-07-16 they can be saved as favorites too (Check 4b).
• The heart icon in the top navigation bar is a shortcut to this same Favorites screen — tap it from any screen. Logged out, it sends you to the log-in screen, same as Check 1.