Accounts, sign-in, and an invite-only beta
Until now TCG Marquee had exactly one user: me. To let testers in, it needed accounts.
What went in
- Sign up, sign in, and sign out, with passwords stored the safe way (hashed, never in plain text).
- An admin page to see who's signed up, change plans, and manage the system.
- Invite-only signups. During the beta, you can only join with an invite, which lets me pick the people who test it.
- Free top-tier access for beta testers, so they can try every feature without paying.
A few lessons
Signing out showed a full sign-up form instead of just email and password, which was confusing, so the sign-in page got simpler. I also needed a way to test each plan, so the admin page lets me switch any account's plan, including my own.
Admin can also move a collection from one account to another. I don't collect myself, so my demo collection was entered for a friend, and that let me hand it to him when he became the first tester.