Dear ManiaExchange Community,

We're proud to announce the release of a small, but important, stepping stone for ManiaExchange.

New features include:

• One Click Awarding.
  
• Ability to undo awarding within one minute.
  
• Existing awards have been merged into Comments.
  
• Reply to Comments in nested view.
  
• Simplified and reorganized track details.
  
• New "Copy Track ID" button on trackpage (Goodbye Flash!)
  
• GDPR compliance: Visible Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy links added to the footer.
  
• Ability to request deletion of your MX Account and your data.

This is a small but impactful update with which we hope to incrementally improve the experience for the community. The decisions we've made prior to development were discussed at length and well informed.

Some things we'd like to work on next (no promises):

• Notification fixes (e.g. when someone replies to your comment).
  
• Linking Discord #announcement channel to MX Frontpage for news.
  

Why is this update a stepping stone?
The implementation of these features makes way for many things we've planned for the future. That includes:

• Feature that allows for awarding from online servers without leaving the game.
  
• Complete ManiaExchange design overhaul
  
• High quality + multiple screenshot upload
  
• Markdown Formatting everywhere
  

...and more!


Some other questions you may have :

Are Award Comments gone now?
We have converted existing award comments into normal comments. Your comment is displayed alongside other comments.

But then how can I write something nice about a track I really like?
After awarding a map you can comment normally. Since you awarded the map, your comment will be highlighted with an award symbol next to your name to show that you also awarded the map. The author also gets an icon next to their name so you can easily identify them in the comments area.

What are the reasons for implementing the new awarding system?

• Even though activity hasn't decreased much, user interactions regarding awarding has decreased over time.
  
• Personal surveys among community members indicated that awarding is too much of a hassle to do often. Some feel the need to write something, but they don't always know what to say.
  
• Many recent awards consist of only a few words and/or emoticons.
  
• One Click Awarding makes it possible so that in the future we could implement an API, so you could, for example... award a track from an online game server or a ManiaLink inside ManiaPlanet.

In the end, awarding is still the same, except you aren't forced to write a comment anymore. With these changes, we hope to boost activity on the site by making it easier for you to show appreciation for your favorite tracks.

What changes for me and my data on Mania-Exchange, after the GDPR update?
We have now officially made it possible to delete your account completely, as the regulation instructs us to do so. Otherwise, not much has changed for us regarding how safe and careful we treat your data - you can find the Terms and Conditions and our Privacy Policy on the bottom of the page.


What's left to say?

We hope you like the changes as much as we do. With this update, we wanted to bring in a little excitement and hype for the batch of upcoming updates.
We have a mountain to climb though. The design overhaul and a few of the other ~180 tasks we've mapped and planned are very time consuming and depend a lot on teamwork.
It took us a few months for these updates, since there are only 2 semi-active developers in the team (   TGYoshi &   Ozon ). If you're motivated, reliable and good with C#/HTML/asp.NET don't hesitate to contact us and we'd love to consider adding you to the team!

We're also happy to read and answer your feedback about this update. Thanks for contributing to MX!
- The ManiaExchange Crew

Not a fan of this new awarding system, feels kinda unnecessary
Just saying someone awarded your map isn't as satisfying as a "Good Map" or "Great Job"
These types of comments will most likely decrease as it's now to much of a hassle to leave them

ITS SO DIFFERENT HNNG

Very cool update though, I probably need some time to get used to the new award/comment sections but I think it's better this way. Also quality of life changes are good

Great update! I'm looking forward to when people can award maps from a server.

Nice update!

it's nice to see that the mania exchange continues to evolve ,
I would love so much to help you and be part of the team but I have absolutely no programming knowledge...

I'll just let you know if I see any bugs and if I have ideas to improve the site...

Best regards and good continuation

akilehad

akilehad says:

I would love so much to help you and be part of the team but I have absolutely no programming knowledge...

I'll just let you know if I see any bugs and if I have ideas to improve the site...

Thanks a lot, this is sometimes even more important than to be the one writing the code.

I like the new stuff. I needed a few moments to figure out where things are (e.g. Title for map) and it all makes sense. Nice work guys!

Small update which I pushed right after this one, after some requests:

New update can be good but I'll need some time to get used to it.

AR »rexine says:
Great update! I'm looking forward to when people can award maps from a server.

Yes, this would be so great. I often forget to award instantly and then dont remember the names. Also im one of those people who dont write lot of text into awards, except there is something really extraordinary about the map, so a quick award button on server without the need to leave the game would be great.

ps: @Ozon: i think you could collapse whole "embeded items" list, because there are anyway not many people interessted about that. Actually i sometimes am, but in those cases its easy to expand the list.

Overall nice update