# State of PlotlyJS and support packages

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/state-of-plotlyjs-and-support-packages/86119>\
**Category:** Visualization\
**Tags:** plotlyjs\
**Created:** [August 22, 2022, 6:16am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/state-of-plotlyjs-and-support-packages/86119 "2022-08-22T06:16:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![VivMendes](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vivmendes/32/16477_2.png) [@VivMendes](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/VivMendes)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2022, 10:28pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/state-of-plotlyjs-and-support-packages/86119/4 "2022-08-22T22:28:17Z")

</div>

In my humble opinion, PlotlyJS is a remarkable piece of software. I taught two macroeconomic courses in the previous academic year (the undergrad course [here](https://www.sites.google.com/iscte-iul.pt/macroeconomics-0271/home) and a master’s [here](https://www.sites.google.com/iscte-iul.pt/macroeconomics-m8674/home)) using the reactivity of Pluto and the interactivity of PlotlyJS, to students who had never had one hour of computation before. Last year, the course involved around 200 students, and I plan to use it again this year (around 300 students).

In particular, the undergrad students were thrilled about the experience of opening a notebook, plotting data, hovering over small details in a plot (using either x or y modes), zooming in/out, and so on. I was expecting trouble here, as I had never taught this kind of material to undergrads in economics. Instead, I got students fascinated by what a simple computer, a marvelous programming language, and no more than 20 packages can do for them. I am pretty sure that the kind of teaching materials the students had access to would not have been available without PlotlyJS. I should also thank @disberd for providing a workaround to make PlotlyJS a perfect match for Pluto [here](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/pluto-plots-with-plotlybase-plotlyjs-with-working-static-html-export/61730) and [here](https://github.com/JuliaPluto/PlutoPlotly.jl). I must confess that I tried four other plotting packages, but for the kind of teaching materials I was looking for, PlotlyJS was far more competent and versatile than the others.

So, I will be highly disappointed if PlotlyJS is pushed gradually into the department of abandonware. If that happens, I think the Julia community will also be affected somehow, either because many use the plotlyjs backend in Plots.jl to benefit from the interactivity the package allows or because they have a particular job to do (like me) in which PlotlyJS excels.

I hope @sglyon can find some spare time to allocate to the maintenance of his marvelous piece of software or that @disberd will find a way to develop the PlutoPlotly.jl package further. I can not be of much help, as my programming skills are mediocre. As a user, I must do justice to what we can achieve with a fantastic plotting package in the Julia system: PlotlyJS.

---

_[View the full topic](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/state-of-plotlyjs-and-support-packages/86119)._