January 21, 2021 Software Update

This morning we deployed a new version of the FarmBot Web App. Here’s what’s new:

Phase 1 Deprecation of Farmware

As has been indicated in our developer documentation for a while now, we’re slowly phasing out support for 3rd party Farmware. While the Farmware system is crucial for our 1st party photo taking and image processing features, 3rd party adoption has been low and come at the cost of a high maintenance burden to support a very small pool of authors.

While early Farmwares such as Mother’s Little Helper, Power Loop, and derivatives served the community well as a way to add important functionality that was not possible with the core feature set at the time, even these most popular Farmwares have seen their adoption and support waning.

As of this morning, the Farmware panel has been hidden from view for everyone who had zero 3rd party Farmwares installed. The panel remains accessible for people with pre-existing Farmwares, but it will likely eventually be removed entirely. Support for 3rd party Farmware in FBOS will likely be removed this year, and we suggest authors and users begin thinking about alternative solutions.

I want to reassure you all though that we continue to see the value in allowing 3rd party developers to take greater control of FarmBot with custom code. We are currently working on new features that will facilitate this innovation while also offering a better developer experience. I expect we’ll have more to share on this front next month. If you have any feedback on this transition, please let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Miscellaneous

• Thank you SebastianoPistore on GitHub for updating the international translations 🌍
• Fixed a bug where the PARAMETER LOAD PROGRESS would never reach 💯
• Added a link to our IT Security Professionals documentation to the connectivity panel 👩‍💻