We are sorry, but windy-plugins are no longer mainatainable
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Hello Ivo,
I can only agree with the previous users. We use Windy almost daily for weather analysis and plan world championships and world records with the plugins for trajectories and soundings. It would be really fatal if these excellent functions were to disappear. Then we would only have the option of returning to NOAA and Meteoblue. With the plugin, Windy offers a very uncomplicated way to create trajectories with different models. The plugins are almost self-explanatory, even for less experienced users and newcomers.
So I hope that the plugins will either continue to work like this or be integrated by you into windy itself.
Besides, windy would not be the only site with 3rd party code in the browser. Every plugin that the user installs in the browser can be integrated into the site. Perhaps a corresponding disclaimer would be a possibility? Or real browser plugins that the user has to actively install? In any case, the api should be maintained accordingly.
Windy has found many supporters in the balloon community in recent years. It would be a real shame if this function were to be removed.
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Dear Windy team, not only for long distances in the balloon flight, but also for short planning, the function of the trajectors is helpful and contributes to safety. In training, it also supports learners and teachers in checking their own calculations and thus contributes to more security. A change to a less precise offer would be very unfavourable. Please think again about taking over the function, it is very important and valuable to us in the balloon flight!
Kind regards,
Jacqueline Honkomp -
Dear Windy team
Since your Windy plugins have been around, I have always enjoyed using them for planning and carrying out hot air balloon flights and have come to really appreciate them. I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for the idea and implementation. This tool has really become a "must have" and I would hate to do without it. It contributes greatly to increasing safety in the field of ballooning and aviation as a whole. A compromise that is not really justifiable for me would be to switch back to "Meteoblue", which I would be reluctant to do.
I therefore hope that you will reconsider the idea of no longer offering your plugins and continue as before.All the best Manuel
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Dear Windy Team,
I am a Hail defensive pilot - the head of the cloud seeding project in Slovenia and a balloon pilot.
I work with wind trajectories for long distance balloon flights and tactical planning for cloud sitting activities.
In other forecasting software systems, there is no comparable tool available or it is very unreliable.
It would be a shame if the trajectories no longer worked, as this would mean a lot of problems for us when planning our activities.
So please keep at least this plugin on the front end. -
Hey Guys,
as a Balloonpilot, i am strongly relying on the windy trajectories PlugIn every week.
Not only in daily flying the tool is perfect to safely compare weathermodels and forecasts for our planned flight, but also in Competition flying our command centers use the tool more then heavily and actually rely on this.
If the PlugIn will not be available anymore, we have to move back to Meteoblue and NOAA Trajectories, since without the PlugIn we can not use Windy anymore. Stepping back to the "old" ways (Meteoblue and NOAA) but push us back in time and safety standards that have evolved around the PlugIn in the last years.
I really hope, all this kind messages that reach you will maybe turn your decisions and thoughts on this.
Maybe integrating the Trajectories PlugIn (including the Airspace PlugIn) can be integrated into windy as a full function. I bet most of the balloonist would be willing to pay contribution to implement this into windy.Kind regards
BeMu
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@ivo
from a technical perspective I actually agree with your decision to deprecate plugins in their current form.Sometimes technical developments invalidate past decisions, and that seems to be one of those cases.
Let me also remark that the 'tens of users' numbers you cited seem deceiving, as can be seen by the reaction in this forum. There is a rather simple explanation for this in the trajectory case:
Trajectories mostly are run, downloaded as GPX, and made into a shareable link with https://gpsvisualizer.com to bring this into presentable and permanent form. That link is then shared by Whatsapp, mail, social media and whatnot like so: https://static.mah.priv.at/cors/example.html . Those links routinely get dozens of clicks, sometimes in the hundreds at a large event. I know because I host those links.
That said, plugins are API's, and API's are promises - something users and developers rely on to be upheld. If you are about to break that promise, then I would suggest in the minimum a migration path be offered to not leave users without functionality they relied on - of course assuming you want to retain those users.
I do not see much of a migration path being offered in your post.
Let me therefore outline options, first from a Windy perspective.
(1) you go ahead and drop plugins wholesale, without replacement option as you announced.
(2) you take the minimum required functionality of the trajectory plugin, transplant it to your backend and add that as a standard layer in the frontend.
(3) you drop trajectories altogether, but you make the Point Forecast API to support all weather models - the current functional set is unsuitable.The minimum required functionality IMO is:
- a set of forecast models
- a set of altitudes
- duration of flight
- forward/backward option
- path download option.
Everything else which is not essential, not important to be configurable, low usage to start with or can be had differently can go or replaced by fixed parameters: Airspaces, interval times, ascent/descent simulation etc.
While I hesitate to call this effort 'trivial', it is not particularly complicated either.
Now, speaking for my community, I envisage the following outcomes:
as for (1), you will likely see a mass defection to Meteoblue, and I am certainly prepared to get in touch with Meteoblue and communicate our needs more clearly.
If this were the outcome, I would pursue - in parallel - a homegrown solution the same way the radiosonde effort started fairly soon, and there is existing work to give us a headstart.
While more work for us it would also enable us to be more fit for our purpose, for instance finer altitude resolution. Since I am aware of, and in touch with a part of the European Defense community (paratroopers)
I envisage a possible cooperation and maybe even ongoing funding option for such an effort.(2) would IMO be the best option for Windy: it gives you a free hand to develop the frontend, it is functionally a superset as to what Meteoblue and others offers and you both gain a competitive feature while lowering your maintenance load.
(2) would also be best for the ballooning community, as we get a stable function and on mobiles.
(3) would be tedious for us as we need to build a replacement service based on an improved Point Forecast API, and we would still have to trust that this API promise not to be broken again - which, as things stand - I am uneasy with.
However, it would enable you to pursue business opportunities as mentioned which seem to be off the radar as of now. Those opportunities exist - see DarkSky, but pursuing them needs a significant effort on your part on the API front.
My recommendation is option (2).
Your call.
Michael Haberler
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Oh no! A lot of pilots in our club are using windy's trajectories function at almost every flight, with 2 flights/pilot/per week we need that around 1000times per year.
So we really hope that you reconsider this desicion. -
@Doris-Hofbauer looks like meteoblue is the future tool to use
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Seems like users really want to keep trajectories
So be it
We will implement it as core Windy feature
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Dear windy-team,
A lot of hot-air balloners really got used to work with trajectories for planning our flights - so if anyhow possible please rethink your decion and keep on with this really great service. Thanks a lot!! -
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Dear Windy team, as everyone else has already written, Windy is extremely important for a balloon pilot's flight preparation. So, please reconsider the plan and do not stop providing support. Countless pilots will thank you!
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Guys if you want to keep Traj plugin working, that we would need to look at source codes somehow.
GitHub repository of Traj plugin is empty.
This is ONE OF THE REASONS we want to abandon external plugins program. There is 3rd party code in users browser and we can not check its source codes.
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Dear WINDY Team,
Many balloonists use the trajectory plugin. It would be a great pity if this functionality were no longer available in the future. I use the plugin regularly and for the following weekend our planning and decision for the balloon flight over the Alps is based on this tool. Please consider whether there is a possibility.
Thanks Martin -
As many have quoted before, especially the trajectory plug-in has become an indispensable source of data and information for planning any of our balloon flights. It cannot be emphasized enough, that there is currently no other tool with the same precision, flexibility in its usage, the ability to compare models, overlay it immediately with airspace data, combine trajectories, export data etc. etc.
In my case, and I know many others, I have the premium account in Windy (next to other paying forecasting services) because of the trajectory plugin and it’s irreplaceable value for planning balloon flights. I have no doubt, that an integration of this plugin into the Windy core with its numerous users around the world will continue to attract users.
Going back to the solutions from before windy trajectories would mean stepping back more than five years (I have used Windy trajectories very successfully since 2019 on a very regular basis now as many other balloon pilots have) and and we would lose precision, comfort in complex planning of long flights, safety in the end…Dear Windy-team please consider integrating the functionality of the trajectory plug in the core of your app, as you can already guess, there is quite a big community using and relying on it and ready to support it. Thank you for considering!
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Please remember: only if the pilots are happy will the passengers be happy too. Behind every pilot are many crew members and many more guests who are enjoying one of the last adventures. Ergo: Please support the pilots as much as you can with a valuable feature set and remain their number 1. 🤗
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Dear Windy
Please can the plugins continue to be supported - they are very handy
in particular the flight planner plugin that i use a lotthanks
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Can you consider including flight planner plugin (www.windy.com/plugins/windy-plugin-fp) into your main code?
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We will give plugin system one more try
Closing the thread
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