Observable

Visnu Pitiyanuvath

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Searching for Observable  is difficult because of the JS observable confusing google to what I'm looking for.  Any tips on searching?  Also searching on ObservableHQ is nice but slow, is there a way to speed up getting results by opting out of showing a thumbnail image and maybe having more text to highlight context of the search result found?

Brett Cooper

@hellonearthis Hi, thanks for the feedback. Yes, we're working on search. Feel free to post on our forum at https://talk.observablehq.com for tips on  searching.

Wayne Sutton

One thing that I dearly wish for in Observable notebooks would be to be able to break out of the top-down notebook layout with lots of empty space on both sides. 

Observable would be great for many dashboard type scenarios if there were an officially sanctioned way how to rearrange cells freely in 2d space (absolute positioning or css grid or something along those lines). Then even if you need many controls visible on screen you would still have plenty of screen real estate for several visualisations at the same time. 

I saw a few hacks for multi column layout etc but nothing that would give me the greater flexibility that I seek. 

If you could talk a bit if this fits in your vision and what Ideas you have around this topic, that would be much appreciated!

Daniel Bachler

Question 1:
One thing I really enjoy about following the "Trending" category on Observable is that there are often notebooks describing new versions of of D3's component modules. Reading those, it appears that the release of D3 V6 is imminent. Do you have a specific timeframe for this? What will be some of your favorite new features?

Question 2:
There seems (to me) to be a surprising amount of negativity directed towards Observable on the forum. Largely, this seems to stem from the perception (right or wrong) that one must use Observable in order to use D3. Do you have any thoughts on how to address this? D3 is widely thought to have a steep learning curve itself. Did you have any similar reactions in the early day's of D3's development?

Question 3:
In the interest of ascertaining its long term stability - I wonder: What is the business model for Observable?

Mark McClure

Thanks for the questions @mcmcclur and @danyx

I liked @danyx point,  on a HD screen and 4k screen, the empty space isn't good.  Zooming in the notebook also doesn't work as it breaks the layout with elements getting hidden.  This is not good as it becomes an accessibility issue for some users.

I see the first part of my first question is already deprecated. :) Second part still stands, though your new notebook clarifies a lot of that as well.
https://observablehq.com/@d3/d3-6-0

Why is this using ti.to if crowdcast has their own RSVP system?

Fabian Iwand

@mootari Hi we could link out directly to Crowdcast but want to keep humans on the page plus we can import RSVPs to crowdcast. Therefore the answer is for simplicity of RSVPing for humans who want to attend the event.

This isn't functioning correctly on this page due to spaces in the ## name of each cell

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