[josm-dev] JOSM slippy_map_chooser plugin: some questions

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> What really confused me was that you have to select a "yellow rectangle" 
> to mark the area to be downloaded - I guess this is done to be similar 
> with the "map" tab, but IMO this map should simply be replaced by the 
> slippy_map_chooser completely.

The current mechanism provides for plugins to replace a tab in the 
download dialog so it might be sensible for the smc plugin to replace 
the map tab, while the map tab would still be available for those not 
having the smc plugin. I'll gladly help with that, the mechanism is 
perhaps not immediately obvious.

> While trying the slippy_map_chooser, I was simply expecting that the 
> whole dialog screen would be the bounding box for download. This would 
> make it *much* easier to understand and use IMHO.

Understand, yes; use, no. First, you must not forget that the tabs in 
the download dialog are a two-way thing: select an area in one, and it 
will be selected in the other as well. People have been using the map 
tab for this: enter coordinates and, before downloading, check if the 
yellow spot on the map is about where it should be.

So the smc plugin must be able to represent *any* area selected on 
another tab, which it cannot do by simply using the full of the window. 
(I don't think the smc plugin currently displays what has been chosen in 
another tab but it should probably do that).

> I've just zoomed into 
> the slippy_map so I got the right cutout and clicked ok 

What if you wanted to download an area with a different aspect ratio or 
an area that was slightly more than displayed at zoom 17 but slightly 
less than at zoom 16?

> Would it be possible to just remove the "yellow rectangle" logic and 
> simply download the "whole visible screen" of the dialog?

I don't think that would be a good idea. (A possible compromise: Make 
the yellow rectangle always encompass the full viewport *unless* 
explicitly chosen by a mouse drag.)

> Would it be possible to add the plugin sources into the osm subversion 
> (e.g. into 
> svn.openstreetmap.org\applications\editors\josm\plugins\slippy_map_chooser)?

Would be cool.

Bye
Frederik