[josm-dev] Tagging Presets

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

    JOSM revision 399, which can be downloaded from now on, has a 
built-in palette of "tagging presets".

Many probably don't even know tagging presets. Tagging presets are a way 
to wrap one or more tags (key/value) into a nice, named preset with an 
icon. Not all key/value pairs must be fixed; they can also be flagged as 
"ask user" (either free-form text input, or combo boxes, or checkboxes); 
when the user chooses a preset, a dialog pops up and the object is 
tagged accordingly.

The cool thing about presets is that they can be fully configured by way 
of an XML file, and multiple such files can be combined. JOSM can even 
load these preset definitions from web sites.

The feature has been available in JOSM for a long time but was very 
under-used. I believe that, while presets make things especially easy 
for newcomers, even the old JOSM hands will find it an improvement to 
(for example) have a on-shot button for a post box or so.

I have now incorporated a presets.xml file and matching icons created by 
Christoph Eckert into JOSM by default, in the hope of making the feature 
better known and enticing users to play with it and create their own 
presets. I also hope that we will be able to build similar improvements 
for the creation and maintenance of relations.

If you download the latest JOSM you should see a new "Presets" menu from 
which you can select stuff. Everything in the presets menu can also be 
be placed in the tool bar. In addition, there's still the old presets 
drop-down in the "Properties" dialog but that will soon vanish.

If you don't like the presets menu you can either disable it in the 
preferences dialog, or if you want your presets differently, you can 
disable the default and make your own. (You can get the default 
presets.xml file from SVN or just extract it from the jar file.)

If you read the newbies list and think this feature is good enough to be 
announced there, feel free to do so.

Bye
Frederik