SoftwareApp
7985d33869
The R8 defect fixed in the previous change was invisible to every check that existed: it passed the whole unit suite, passed lint, and worked in the debug APK, and the release APK was the only thing that disagreed. Nothing in the process had ever run it. The checklist now has a section for that, placed with the artefact work rather than at the end, because the order in which the document is meant to be worked is build, run it, then declare things to Google. It carries the install commands (the release build is a separate package, so it can sit beside the debug one and be compared directly), the MIUI trap that a bare INSTALL_FAILED_USER_RESTRICTED means its dialog was answered late rather than that the APK is bad, the paths most worth walking (thumbnails, an operation long enough to show the notification, the two SQLite databases, each viewer, the FileProvider), a dumpsys check of what the installed build actually holds rather than what the APK declares, and the one instruction that matters when something differs - assume R8 removed something instead of assuming the feature is broken, because a class named only from a resource or reached only by reflection looks unused to a shrinker. A last item points the walk at the demo library from the screenshot section, so it is repeatable and a reviewer's own files stay out of it. Renumbering meant fixing four references: two inside the checklist, and one each in STORE_LISTING (the screenshot section is now 7) and MONETISATION (pricing is now 8). A checklist that points at the wrong step is worse than one that points nowhere, so they were traced rather than assumed. Section 3 also gets a fresh measurement, since its own rule is that a stale hash is worse than no hash because it reads as though it had been checked. The record it replaces was from 2026-10-15 and predated the library views, the duplicate finder and video thumbnails: the AAB is now 5 181 628 bytes (sha256 f053d90f...) and the APK 2 294 021 bytes (sha256 afe03dea...), both versionCode 1 / versionName 1.0.0 / targetSdk 36, with the permission set unchanged and still without INTERNET or any READ_MEDIA_*. Two smaller repairs came out of the same pass. A link added in the previous commit pointed at EDGE_CASE_TESTING.md from the repository root, where it does not resolve - the changelog's other links all carry the docs/ prefix - and that was found by writing a link checker and running it over every relative link in the markdown: 37 of them, none now broken. And the re-measure warning had ended up stated twice, once per measurement record, so it now appears once, after the newest numbers and immediately before the upload steps. Documentation only; no code changed, so the suite stands at 324 JVM tests and lint clean. The walk itself was done on the phone in the previous change - what is new is that the process now asks for it, which is the part that would have caught the defect in the first place.
207 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
207 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
# Play Store listing (M10)
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Ready-to-paste copy for the *Main store listing* page, plus the graphics that go with it.
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Every graphic is generated from the app's own vectors, so a rebrand is a re-run rather than
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a redraw.
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See [PLAY_RELEASE_CHECKLIST](PLAY_RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md) § 7 for where this fits in the
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release.
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## App name
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**Plain Files**
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Deliberately not "File Manager": dozens of apps are literally called that, and a distinctive
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name is what makes a listing findable and rememberable. It is one string
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(`app_name` in `values/strings.xml`); the `applicationId` is separate and already locked.
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## Graphics
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```bash
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./tools/make-store-assets.sh # icon + feature graphic -> store-assets/
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./tools/make-store-screenshots.sh # phone -> screenshots/phone/
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FORM_FACTOR=tablet-7in ./tools/make-store-screenshots.sh
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FORM_FACTOR=tablet-10in ./tools/make-store-screenshots.sh
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```
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## Screenshots
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Play's slots, and what each needs:
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| Slot | How many | Target here | Notes |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| Phone | **2–8** | `screenshots/phone/` — 1080×2160 | A phone at its native 1080×2400 is 2.22:1 and is **rejected**; the normaliser crops chrome and clamps to 2:1 |
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| 7-inch tablet | 4+ recommended | `screenshots/tablet-7in/` — 1200×1920 | A tablet frame is already inside the 2:1 cap, so 0 px of crop |
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| 10-inch tablet | 4+ recommended | `screenshots/tablet-10in/` — 2560×1600 | Landscape profile (matches the `tablet10` AVD); Play accepts either orientation |
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### The library the shots are taken over
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**Never shoot over a real device's storage.** Published screenshots are public, and a file
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list exposes real folder names and document titles. The library is generated instead:
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```bash
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python3 tools/make-demo-library.py # -> demo-files/ (git-ignored, ~161 MB)
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adb push demo-files /sdcard/Download/PlainFiles-Demo
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```
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⚠️ **The home screen and the library views need this more than a folder listing does.** A library is
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not a folder — it lists files from *everywhere* — so shooting `Images` on a real phone publishes the
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owner's own filenames and thumbnails, and the home screen's counts publish how many files of each
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kind the device holds. Both must be shot on a device, or an AVD, whose only storage is the demo
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library. This was found by running the libraries on a real phone and seeing its owner's files in
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them: [EDGE_CASE_TESTING](EDGE_CASE_TESTING.md).
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`tools/make-demo-library.py` builds eight distinct sample images (so the grid view and
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thumbnails have something to show), a handful of documents, sized stand-ins for video and
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audio so the storage-usage screen has something worth ranking, and a real ZIP so the extract
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action can be exercised. Every name and every pixel is fake by construction.
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One consequence worth knowing before shooting the Videos library: the video stand-ins are
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**zero-filled**, so they cannot be decoded and photograph as the fallback film icon rather than as a
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frame. A screenshot that shows video thumbnails needs a real clip, which is one command:
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```bash
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ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "testsrc2=duration=3:size=320x240:rate=15" -pix_fmt yuv420p clip.mp4 # synthetic, no camera needed
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adb push clip.mp4 /sdcard/Download/PlainFiles-Demo/Video/
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```
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| Asset | Play's spec | Result | Source |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| App icon | 512×512, 32-bit PNG with alpha, ≤ 1 MB | `store-assets/icon-512.png` — 512×512, **RGBA**, ~5 KB | `tools/store-assets/icon.svg`, mirroring `ic_launcher_background.xml` + `ic_launcher_foreground.xml`. Background, paths and opacities are identical, so **the store icon is the launcher icon** rather than a lookalike that drifts. |
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| Feature graphic | 1024×500, JPEG or 24-bit PNG **without** alpha | `store-assets/feature-graphic-1024x500.png` — 1024×500, **RGB** | `tools/store-assets/feature-graphic.svg` |
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| Phone screenshots | no alpha, shorter side ≥ 320, longer side ≤ 3840, **longer side ≤ 2× shorter** | `store-assets/screenshots/phone/` (1080×2160) | `tools/make-store-screenshots.sh`, from `adb` captures in `store-assets/raw-screenshots/phone/` |
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Two details worth keeping:
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- **The icon is full bleed.** The background rect covers all 108 dp, so every pixel is
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opaque and Play's mask can crop to any shape without showing a gap.
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- **A phone at its native 1080×2400 is 2.22:1 and is therefore rejected.** The normaliser
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crops the status and navigation bars and then clamps to 1080×2160 — system chrome only,
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never app content. Tablets are already inside the 2:1 cap, so their crop defaults to 0.
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### The feature graphic's safe area
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Play crops the feature graphic to a **centre square** for some placements, so all of the copy
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sits inside **x 262…762** and the motif — which does not survive — is decoration. Verified by
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actually cropping the rendered PNG rather than by trusting the arithmetic:
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```bash
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magick store-assets/feature-graphic-1024x500.png -gravity Center -crop 500x500+0+0 +repage /tmp/square.png
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```
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## Short description (80 characters max)
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```
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Browse, organise and manage your files. Ad-free, offline, pay once.
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```
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## Full description (4000 characters max)
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```
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Plain Files is a straightforward file manager for Android — no ads, no account, no
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subscription, and no network access at all. You buy it once and it is yours.
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BROWSE ANYTHING
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• Internal storage, SD cards and USB drives, side by side
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• List or grid view, with sorting by name, size, date or type
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• Breadcrumb navigation, and a search that can look in one folder or everywhere
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• Hidden files on request
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ANY SIZE OF SCREEN
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• On a tablet or a wide window you get two panes: the folder list on the left, and what is
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inside the folder you pick on the right — no jumping back and forth
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• Pictures preview at full size beside the list, with their details
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• The same layout on a phone, a 7-inch tablet and a 10-inch tablet
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WORKS WITH YOUR OTHER APPS
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• Share a file to Plain Files from anywhere, then pick the folder to drop it in
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• Choose Plain Files when another app asks you for a file
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• Search everywhere at once: an index means answers arrive right away instead of after a
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long scan — and it always says how current it is
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• Delete, rename or move by mistake? Undo it
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MANAGE YOUR FILES
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• Copy, move, rename and delete, one item or many at once
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• Create folders and edit text files in the built-in editor
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• See the details of anything: size, type, location, modified date
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• Open a file in any app, or share it
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FIND OUT WHERE THE SPACE WENT
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• A storage-usage view that measures every folder and ranks it largest first
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• Spot the folder that is actually eating your storage, then act on it
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ARCHIVES
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• Create ZIP archives, and extract ZIP, TAR, TAR.GZ, TAR.BZ2, TAR.XZ, GZ, BZ2, XZ and 7z
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• Look inside an archive before you extract anything — text, images, documents, audio and
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video included, read straight out of the file
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• RAR is not supported — it needs native code this app does not ship, and it says so rather
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than failing with a strange error
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PRIVATE BY DEFAULT
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• No INTERNET permission. The app cannot send your data anywhere, because it has no way to.
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• No analytics, no advertising SDKs, no third-party trackers
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• No account, no sign-in, nothing to remember
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• Your files stay on your device, always
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SOLD ONCE
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• One purchase, every feature, no ads and nothing to buy inside the app
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• No subscription
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PERMISSIONS, EXPLAINED
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Plain Files asks for "All files access" because that is what browsing and managing files
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anywhere on a device requires — the app's core purpose. Google Play only grants this
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permission to app types that genuinely need it, and a file manager is one of them. If you
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would rather not grant it, the app still works: it can browse a folder you pick yourself
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through Android's own folder picker, and it remembers that choice.
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Read the privacy policy: https://example.invalid/plain-files/privacy
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```
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> Replace the privacy-policy URL with the real public URL before publishing — a repository
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> file is not acceptable to Play. [PRIVACY.md](../PRIVACY.md) is the source text.
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### Why the permission sentence matters
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Play requires that an app's **core functionality be prominently documented and promoted in
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the app's description** when it declares `MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE`. The "PERMISSIONS,
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EXPLAINED" section is not marketing copy — it is the evidence the Permissions Declaration
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Form asks for.
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## Ad headlines (App campaign, 30 characters each)
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Google App campaigns take **up to five headlines**, and the system mixes and matches them, so
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each one has to stand on its own rather than continue the one before it. Counts include spaces
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and are measured, not estimated:
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| Headline | Chars | Angle |
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| Ad-free file manager | 20 | The whole pitch, in three words |
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| Pay once, keep it forever | 25 | One-time price, no subscription |
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| Works offline. No network. | 26 | The privacy claim the APK actually backs |
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| SD cards and USB drives | 23 | Reach beyond internal storage |
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| See where your storage went | 27 | The storage-usage view |
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Spares, to swap in when an asset group wants a different emphasis: `Two panes on your tablet`
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(24), `Undo a delete you regret` (24), `Built for phones and tablets` (28).
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Three rules these are written to:
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- **Never "free".** This is a paid app, so a headline implying otherwise is misleading as well
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as a policy problem. The launch price is the only discount, and it belongs in the price field,
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not in a headline.
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- **No superlatives.** "Best", "top" and "#1" are unverifiable claims, and they are not how this
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app sells anyway — the differentiator is what it *does not* contain.
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- **Sentence case, no shouting.** No all-caps text, no emoji, no stacked punctuation; Google's
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editorial policy refuses all three, and it matches the voice of the listing copy above.
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The app name is taken from the store listing (*App name* above) and is not repeated in a
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headline.
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## Still to do before publishing
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- **Screenshots.** `tools/make-store-screenshots.sh` is written and the raw-screenshot
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directories are in place, but no captures have been taken yet, so
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`store-assets/screenshots/` is empty. Capture against a **synthetic** library — never a
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real one, since published screenshots would expose real file names.
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- **Tablet screenshots.** Play has a 7-inch and a 10-inch slot, each wanting 4+.
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