MH Birthday + Public Beta now here!

Greetings everyone!

In our development update, we told you about our “super secret” development that has been going on for the past 8 months following the release of MH v2 in March. Well, some time has passed since then, and we have finally arrived at the stage we know some of you have been waiting for!

PUBLIC BETA HAS BEGUN!


Before we let you all loose in our beta site, we would like to remind you that this is in fact a BETA product. There *will* be some bugs, and there *will* be some unfinished design and templates. Please note that at the current time of writing, there has been no IE7 css written, so bugs with IE7 are pretty much expected.

Also, it is important to note that we will NOT be supporting Internet Explorer 6 anymore. If you are using this web browser, please upgrade to a newer web browser in order to experience this website as intended. Our recommendation is Firefox 3.0.x!

Lastly, PLEASE NOTE that the FORUMS on beta do not require testing. Bugs and synchronization issues with forum posts, avatars, passwords and the like exist on beta SOLELY because the database and forum files were duplicated and copied to a separate location a few days ago. Please do not report bugs with the forums missing your avatar, your password is changed, you get errors using the forums or whatever else. Keep testing to the website and its features mainly! Thanks! :-]

Now, with that said;

Welcome to the Public Beta of MangaHelpers v2.3!

Manga Section (/manga/)
Meet our manga section! This is a comprehensive manga resource database with everything from official information to syndicated data aggregation from our other new website sections (listed below). Additionally, this section houses manga series ratings and reviews which you may find very useful when looking for interesting manga to read. Browse, search or filter your way to the manga YOU want to read! You can even subscribe for notification on new manga releases of various forms for your favorite series!

Translators Section (/translators/)
The ultimate manga translator resource. Translations no longer take place as unorganized and cluttered forum threads, but rather in our new database that organizes and syndicates translations between releases, raws and manga series. With features such as Translator profile pages, translator's tips and notes as well as the possibility of subscribing to alerts from your favorite translators, this resource will allow you to find the translations you want in a fast and accessible manner!

Scanlation Groups Section (/scanlators/)
Are you part of or do you own a scanlation group? Be sure to register your group in our scanlation groups database here at MangaHelpers. Until now, publishing scanlations on MangaHelpers has been done via forum threads, and finding older scanlations could be somewhat of a hassle. No more! Scanlation groups now have their own profile pages here at MangaHelpers, featuring both group statistics and project tracking, a news system for scanlation groups as well as a powerful scanlation release database. Once a group has been created, only members of the group in question (or optionally leader only) may submit releases on behalf of that group. Once a scanlation has been uploaded and is stored on our MangaHelpers media servers, it is additionally decompressed and converted into a read online version within the group's profile pages. Optionally, you may choose to not host with us and provide an external download link, though this is not recommended as scanlations hosted offsite lose their thumbnail/online viewing functionality.

Members can in turn interact with all their favorite groups at MangaHelpers by subscribing to notifications on new releases and registering as fans of the group. Which group will become the most popular? YOU can decide this in a fair way!



Quick Downloads Section (/downloads/)
To a new visitor, Mangahelpers might have been a bit confusing when it came to finding something to download. Not anymore, with our download section you no longer have to spend your valuable time searching for manga just to find broken links. As long as the group decides to use us for hosting you'll easily find what you're looking for to either download or to read online right then and there.

Miscellaneous features
We have also added some new custom options for members such as:

- Subscribe to notifications for Manga
Get a PM sent to you the moment a manga is released, be it a raw, trans or scanlation!

- Customize Shoutbox display
Were you tired of seeing other things on the shout box that just took up too much of your screen space? Well choose to hide what you don't want to see with our new customizable shoutbox display.

- Reading list
Having opened the doors to easy access of so much manga, you might find yourself overloaded with things to read. So in order to help organize that burden we provided an easy to use reading list. Know what you're reading, and the status of it so you can spend less time sorting and more time reading!

- And much, much, more!
The amount of features going into this release of MangaHelpers is enormous. A comprehensive feature list will be created at some point in the future, but for now we will allow you all to explore on your own!

So what can you expect?
Well, as mentioned, it is a beta. While we feel we have the framework and back-end working at such a level where we are comfortable with letting you all play around with it, we would like to point out that there are some templates that are *considerably* more polished and done than others. Over the next few days and weeks we will finish mopping up the rest of the templates for an amazing user experience around the board.

What do we ask from you?
Read THIS THREAD and follow the instructions there!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aaaand last but not least......

Happy Birthday MangaHelpers!


Now for the icing on the cake! This year we've included more members that regularly contribute to MH in the Birthday Bash!



Those that decided they wanted to join in on the fun sent an image and a few comments and then the staff used some magic (Read: Lots of sleepless nights, blood, sweat and tears) and made an amazing set of playing cards! Unlike having to go out and find them like in Pokemon, we've collected all of them for you! So with your deck, maybe you can rule MH! Get yours now! Before it's too late!



We've also created another yearbook! This one has messages from the staff, a time line of who's worked here, an introduction of our new mascot and much much more!!! This lovely yearbook took many many hours to complete so do try to take the time out of your busy day to check it out ;).