@vroyer today we released a new version of FarmBot OS and the web app that includes our first implementation of filter-based groups. Check out the details here: April 13, 2020 Software Update
And yes, as @jsimmonds pointed out we lifted the farmware runtime limit to 20 minutes in case you still want to use long-running farmware in lieu of or in addition to the 1st party feature set.
I disagree on this point. We have made imperfect solutions available before. Some have been worthy interims, while others have had bad consequences. In some cases a half-ready solution has caused our customers confusion because the UX wasn’t straightforward, or frustration because there were bugs. In other cases a rushed temporary solution can end up delaying the final solution because we need to worry about data migrations later on, corrupted data, regressions, the negative feedback of sunsetting something people have gotten used to… And in almost all cases, any work that is not aligned with our longer term roadmap is likely going to get scrapped when the real solution is ready. So all the time spent developing, testing, announcing, documenting, and supporting that work was for a short-lived feature. Usually effort is better spent working on stuff that will have a long life and builds the foundation for future features.
Moving or rewriting Loop-Plant-With-Filters into the main codebases could have been done, but it would not have been the right long-term solution for the core platform. To be completely honest, Rick had suggested that idea a few months ago to me and I turned it down, wanting us to focus on the real deal. I felt that implementing the initial version of manually created groups (released in October) would be a decent enough interim, and again, aligned with our longer term roadmap. I stand by that decision.
As mentioned previously, our next major feature will be improving the MARK AS command to work with variables and offer custom write-in options. While I haven’t used Loop-Plant-With-Filters since shortly after it was first released, I think the core feature set will more or less match that farmware once the Mark As command is upgraded.