[OSM-dev] Alpha of rails OSM

Nicola Ranaldo ranaldo at unina.it
Thu Sep 14 15:51:54 BST 2006


> If it's not in the API, every time the user uses a new application,
> they'll have to get themselves to the right place. It's nice to have the
> abiility to use the API to store this globally pertinent piece of
> information... and it's just not that hard, since the API will have to
> be written for the web app anyway. Cookies aren't reliable enough to
> depend upon.
>
> Storing the location for a user in the API means less tile loading. I
> don't have to spend time and tile generation CPU zooming through various
> levels to the place wehre I want to be. With cookies, you have to do
> that for every new computer you go to.

The number of applications getting live data from the server is not sufficient 
to justify this, howewer in a bigger scenario it could be good to have an 
entire extensible framework to store user data more then the simple pos/zoom 
pair:

*) a set of position/zoom with title and description (as bookmarks)
*) a set of rendering profiles (primary way yellow, secondary red, render 
pubs, do not render disco etc....)
*) a set of preferences for route planning (50khm on secondary, 90khm on 
motorway, avoid unpaved ways etc.)

If we standardize the format for those preferences, we have a simple way to 
share profiles between applications too as i suggested in a different thread.

	Niko




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