All new planefinder.net website

Mark Daniels

Mark Daniels

Administrator
Staff member
We've updated planefinder.net today!

It's been many months in the making and includes a completely new design, all new playback, powerful filters, route maps, flight boards and a fair bit more!

We hope that you like it!

As always we welcome feedback on what we do so please let us know what you like, what you don't like (if anything!), and of course any ideas for improvements.

Mark and the Plane Finder team
 
We can't keep the plane we are tracking in the middle of the screen? Unless it is there somewhere. Not as user friendly as the previous version. Might put some people off IMHO.
 
Hi Tony,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on that.
I do take your point.
We'll be looking into this!
Cheers,
Mark
 
On the plus side it's better that the plane description box doesn't follow the plane, or sit in front of it, blocking the view.

Am I the only one looking at the new layout? Come on guys. :)
 
True - we do know that box could be a pain!
We'd have had to make it even bigger to get all of the new stuff in!!

We have had quite a bit of feedback via email today :)
 
Sorry, I don't like it!

The strip comic speech bubble labels are intrusive and opaque , hiding the map/satellite image and contain little information.

The even bigger more detailed speech bubbles are difficult to read with grey coloured type, opaque, obscure even more of the map/satellite picture.

The Information box takes up a large chunk of the window when a plane is clicked. Don't seem to be able to drag it off the main screen into a separate window or make it function as popup. Previous pop-up was much better.

If one zooms back so the whole of the UK is visible then there are no labels displayed. Difficult to find the route a plane follows without moving the mouse to it.

Old labels much clearer and useful and less obtrusive.

At least the persistent flight tracks for all previously selected aeroplanes are still there but the obtrusive and unreadable labels spoil it.

Now very difficult to see and select (for example) all the aeroplanes heading for an airport so that the persistent tracks are shown and then one can watch the patterns of the tracks evolving as the planes fly in. Very therapeutic!!

To me it looks like there had been a lot of fixing of something that wasn't broken!

Any possibility of accessing the old website again please?
 
Hi ATMM,

Sorry to hear that!
We are aware of some of the points that you raise.
Our main reason for removing the boxes is that they were too limiting for us as we added more information for each flight, aircraft and airport.
We were aware of the downsides to this that you describe.

Thank you for the feedback on the labels too.
A quick question - what screen resolution do you run?

Best Regards,

Mark
 
Hi Mark
Love the new site, thank you for all the effort!!

Just to echo some of the comments the planes are a little on the small side.
My res is 1920 x 1080
 
Thanks StuartM,
We're delighted to know that you like the site.
It sure has been a lot of effort!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the plane size too.
We are thinking about those!

Cheers,
Mark
 
I really like being able to filter out the FFA flights!
It's interesting to see the same flights that I'm seeing with my tiny antenna, without all the FAA clutter.

I've got my display set up so I can drop down to a smaller window,
which allows me to watch the adsbRadar on one side of the monitor and PlaneFinder on the other side.
(I've got a wide screen display).
It's interesting to see the odd planes on my adsbRadar (dongle) that don't show up on PlaneFinder.
Seems to say that coverage is a little spotty in some areas. I'll bet adding my site will help out that situation.

Cheers,
Rich
 
Just to say I like the new web site. Few points I observe are:
1. I agree the 'small' label is not the best and could actually do with being smaller and would be nice for it to display when you zoom out a little. The example I have is if I zoom out on Birmingham airport UK(BHX) and Wales just fills the screen then no labels are shown but if I click zoom in (+) once the labels are then shown but the zoom in takes you quite a way in and perhaps zooms in to much for 1 click (resolution 1280/800 running Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m on windows Vista) but I think the detail label is great.
2. Noticed the plane icon for a B787 reminds me of a TU-104!! ;o)
3. It would be nice if the airports (when selected to show) shows a small label with its name
4. When editing the detail label 1 box 2, the drop down select area is off as you have to put your mouse on top of the drop down icon to activate the drop down (minor issue I know but thought I'd mention) ;o)
5. After I had done a search on the database I was unable to find how to link to the map by clicking on the data returned
6. All the additional detail is great and well laid out(overview,flight,aircraft)
7. The filter function is again well laid out and easy to use
8. The play back function is quick and easy to use, nice one
9. Agree with earlier post it would be nice to have the option to follow a selected flight.

Overall liking it very much - just looks like the small labels seem to be a common thing to comment on!
 
ATMM said:
Where is the button to switch off the trail of a plane previously selected?
Click to expand...
Hi ATMM,

If you are referring to the Persistent Flight Paths, then you can switch it off by flicking the 'Persistent Flight Paths' option in the 'Plane' tab in Options. Now the only flight that will show up is the plane which you have clicked. The flight path will clear when you click off the plane.

Hope this helps! ;)

Shine :D
 
Hi Mark and the team at Pinkfroot,

Revamped site is great! Have a concern which I would love to be corrected.
I think the image preview on Plane Finder's picture of a plane which has been uploaded to Pinkfroot is unclear and is not effective.
Take this picture of VH-VXG which I have uploaded for example.

VHVXGQantasB737800.jpg
​
Picture on Pinkfroot.


upload_2014-4-12_19-5-5.png
​
Picture on Plane Finder.

I think it is obvious in which photo is clearer. Just wishing that the photos would look better on Plane Finder.

Another thing which I think should be improved on the image preview of the plane is the picture can stretched to fit the full photo in the preview. It is clearly shown that the copyright symbol and the photo number at the top is blocking some of the plane's photo. In some photos, this blocks much of the plane's fuselage!

If it can't be improved, it is okay. I know that little is better than nothing!

Great site though!

Cheers,

Shine :D
 
Shine Wang said:
If you are referring to the Persistent Flight Paths, then you can switch it off by flicking the 'Persistent Flight Paths' option in the 'Plane' tab in Options. Now the only flight that will show up is the plane which you have clicked. The flight path will clear when you click off the plane.
Click to expand...
No, I am referring to the button that switches off the flight path of the currently selected aeroplane leaving the flight paths of all previously selected aeroplanes switched on. It was there in the previous version and I cannot see it in the new version.
 
Hi ATMM,

It is still these - go to Settings and then Plane. You should see it about half way down the page.
It works too :)
Screen Shot 2014-04-15 at 21.20.34.png
 
Shine Wang said:
Hi Mark and the team at Pinkfroot,

Revamped site is great! Have a concern which I would love to be corrected.
I think the image preview on Plane Finder's picture of a plane which has been uploaded to Pinkfroot is unclear and is not effective.
Take this picture of VH-VXG which I have uploaded for example.

VHVXGQantasB737800.jpg
​
Picture on Pinkfroot.

Picture on Plane Finder.

I think it is obvious in which photo is clearer. Just wishing that the photos would look better on Plane Finder.

Another thing which I think should be improved on the image preview of the plane is the picture can stretched to fit the full photo in the preview. It is clearly shown that the copyright symbol and the photo number at the top is blocking some of the plane's photo. In some photos, this blocks much of the plane's fuselage!

If it can't be improved, it is okay. I know that little is better than nothing!

Great site though!

Cheers,

Shine :D
Click to expand...

Hi Shine,

Thanks for the feedback on the photos.
I can see what you mean.
Regarding the quality we are trying to strike a balance between the speed of uploading each image and the quality.
We are aware the resolution is not as good as we would ideally like but high res would slow it down for many users.
We decided on a comprise that the images can be clicked to go through to the original upload.
We will keep this under review and will also review your point on the bars.

With thanks and best regards,

Mark
 
Tony at Biggin said:
We can't keep the plane we are tracking in the middle of the screen? Unless it is there somewhere. Not as user friendly as the previous version. Might put some people off IMHO.
Click to expand...
Hi Tony,
We are listening and reading all points!
We have now added the follow plane feature!
Thanks for raising this.
It's in Settings --> Plane.
Cheers,
Mark
 
ATMM said:
Sorry, I don't like it!

The strip comic speech bubble labels are intrusive and opaque , hiding the map/satellite image and contain little information.

The even bigger more detailed speech bubbles are difficult to read with grey coloured type, opaque, obscure even more of the map/satellite picture.

The Information box takes up a large chunk of the window when a plane is clicked. Don't seem to be able to drag it off the main screen into a separate window or make it function as popup. Previous pop-up was much better.

If one zooms back so the whole of the UK is visible then there are no labels displayed. Difficult to find the route a plane follows without moving the mouse to it.

Old labels much clearer and useful and less obtrusive.

At least the persistent flight tracks for all previously selected aeroplanes are still there but the obtrusive and unreadable labels spoil it.

Now very difficult to see and select (for example) all the aeroplanes heading for an airport so that the persistent tracks are shown and then one can watch the patterns of the tracks evolving as the planes fly in. Very therapeutic!!

To me it looks like there had been a lot of fixing of something that wasn't broken!

Any possibility of accessing the old website again please?
Click to expand...

I agree with all that has been said here. Speech bubble too intrusive I much prefer tho old site way of showing aeroplane reg and then when you clicked on it the flight details were there as well when wanted. If you zoom to say Heathrow most of my screen is speech bubbles and i don't need the airline logo as well that takes up room. I also would love to be able to access the old site. Some added features are good for those that want them but why did you not add them as options rather than as has been said 'fix what was not broken ' I still cant get the playback to work. The old one was great and as for filters. In the old one it listed all airlines now you have to type in the airline. How do you know what to put in if you don't know what is available? Please can i access the old site as an option. Thanks.
 
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