[josm-dev] A total newbie's problems with josm

[ael]

I thought that it would be useful to communicate my frustrations with
josm in my first couple of hours after downloading version 477,
"last change 2007-11-30 : 13:56:02"

The opening page about a "modeless" version wasn't really meaningful to
a new user, but at least it alerted me to possible problems.

The reference to API 0.5 also on that page didn't seem relevant since I
took API to mean Application Programmer Interface, so something to be
explored later. I now gather that it actually refers to a new xml
version. As I had taken a look at some of the osm xml syntax before
downloading josm, a reference to the xml change would have helped.

Online help.
===========

This was perhaps the major problem! At first I thought that it referred
to a different program! Indeed, it does - an earlier version.

Examples:

The "Introduction to JOSM" starts referring to segments in the second
paragraph: I gather they have been abolished in osm version 0.5.

Editing in JOSM, also in the Introduction - so almost the first thing I
read - refers to
'the node button (4th button in the left menu bar) looks like a little
square and when you hover the mouse over it a tip comes up saying "add a
node to the map".'

Of course, none of the above exist, but I spent far too much time
fiddling with the GUI trying to see if I could make that magic button
appear some how :-(

I could go on, but you see the point: it is totally confusing and off
putting to the new user.

Of course this is open source and documentation often (always?) lags
behind, but all that is needed is a prominent notice warning newbies
that the online help is out of date!

In passing, I also struggled to find out how the mouse operated: in
particular, it was quite some time before I discovered that I needed
shift-ctl-mouse_button for some actions. Shades of emacs (which I don't
mind), but this was unexpected and not well documented.

Tags
====

As I said earlier, I have already taken a quick look at the osm xml and
noticed that the basic tag for a road type was "highway". There is
(obviously) much mention of tagging, but nowhere on the GUI could I find
any mention of tags! I now know they are under "presets" and of course I
looked there. However, I knew that a basic tag was "highway", but it did
not seem to be a Preset, so again I decided that Presets were something
to be explored later after I had found out how to do the 3 basic tasks :
1) creating nodes;
2) collecting into ways;
and
3) tagging said ways.

So help the newbie by mentioning tags in the GUI or put something in the
Introduction to say that Presets are tags. Or change tag to preset or
something on the GUI in the getting started help...

Ok, so I sorted out the problems, but it was very frustrating and
confusing and I began to doubt my sanity at times. If there had been
another editor at the same level as josm, I probably would have dropped
josm after the first 30 minutes...

A Lawrence