.: Before You Join :.

How do I become a BETA tester?
Currently, the BETA program is invite only. You can request an invitation by sending an e-mail to , but there is no guarantee that you will receive on invite. If you send us an e-mail, please let us know who you are and how you came to our site.

What are the responsibilities of a BETA tester?
We understand that BETA testing is done in your spare time, so we don't ask much of our BETA testers. All we do ask is that if they use the BETA versions of our software, they keep in contact with us regarding bugs and feature requests so that we can benefit from sharing early versions of our software with them.

What's in it for me?
Participating in the BETA tester program is rewarding because our BETA testers have the opportunity to start using our freeware products before anyone else does. They also have the opportunity to help shape the design of the product by reporting bugs and suggesting new features. If we use your suggestion in the final release of one of our products, we will be sure to credit you in the documentation for the program.

Please note that Skystone Software only enlists BETA testers for our freeware products - we do not make any money off of the development or distribution of these programs.

What's the general status of your product when it is in BETA?
We do not release a product from ALPHA to BETA until it has been thoroughly developer-tested and documented. The BETA tester program exists to help us catch problems and usability issues that we might not find ourselves, but typically each BETA product is near-production quality.

.: After You Join :.

How do I report a bug?
If you encounter a bug while using our software, please let us know about it by submitting a bug report to our servers. To submit a bug report, simply click "Help -> Submit Bug Report" on the main menu, and fill out the form as if it was an e-mail. When you click "Submit", only the information displayed on the form is sent to our servers.

Please note that certain errors will cause the bug report dialog to appear automatically, populated with internal error information.We encourage you to submit that information to us so that we can address the issue that caused the error.

How do I request a new feature?
We value our BETA tester's opinions and ideas about our software. If you think something could be done better or differently, please let us know by sending an e-mail to (please us the bug report submission system for bugs only). We will consider every request, and make a notation in the Version Information META data for each product if we intend to implement a new feature. If we use your idea, we will credit you in the documentation for the product.

Are usability problems considered bugs?
Probably not. If something works, but not as well as you'd like, please submit a suggestion as a feature request and we will consider modifying the design of the product (if possible) to accomodate your suggestion.

Why haven't I heard back from you regarding my bug report or feature request?
Unless we require more information about your submission, we typically do not contact our BETA testers after they submit either a bug report or feature request. We review all communication from our BETA testers, and value your opinion. We respond to every bug report by updating its status in our database (use the "Help -> Track Bug Reports" menu option to view the latest status of each of your bug reports), and we consider every feature request. If we plan to implement an enhancement based on a request, we will log it in the version information for that product ("Help -> Version Information").

Because these products are freeware, it may take us some time to apply the fixes or enhancements, or we may decide that we don't have the resources to implement a particular suggestion. This doesn't mean that it wasn't a good idea, just that we don't have time to implement it.

How long does it take you to review bug reports or feature requests?
Because we are quite busy working with our clients and other projects, we tend to work on our freeware products in cycles. We may not work on a freeware product for 1-2 months, and then spend some time enhancing it / patching it. None of our freeware products have a BETA-to-production lifecycle plan, they just sort of happen. We will do our best to update bug reports in the database to reflect their status and indicate whether we intend to implement feature enhancements in the version information META data for a product.

Can my BETA tester status be revoked?
We ask that our BETA testers work within the parameters of the terms and conditions outlined elsewhere on this page. We reserve the right to revoke BETA tester status for anyone who violates these requirements.

How to I install BETA products?
Use this link to launch the Skystone Software BETA Product Installer, and enter your e-mail address and registration account password.