[josm-dev] Tagging Presets

[Andy Robinson]

David Groom wrote:
>Sent: 17 October 2007 1:29 AM
>To: josm-dev at openstreetmap.org
>Subject: Re: [josm-dev] Tagging Presets
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Frederik Ramm" <frederik at remote.org>
>To: <josm-dev at openstreetmap.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 11:12 PM
>Subject: [josm-dev] Tagging Presets
>
>
>> 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
>
>Frederick I think its great that these default presets have been added to
>the JOSM installation, I think that in the past presets have probably been
>a
>very underused facility in JOSM,  perhaps only used by "power users" who,
>it
>might be argued, are the very people least likely to benefit from them.
>
>I already have a presets file which I have been using, and understandably
>it
>differs slightly from the default, so I have chosen to load both the
>default
>and my own.  It would be nice if where I have a group in my own presets
>file
>which matches a group in the default presets file, then the default does
>not
>get shown in the list of presets. For instance I currently  have two groups
>for "waterway", one from the new default list, and one from my presets
>file,
>which also includes waterway = riverbank.
>
>As a reminder to anyone who wants to create their own presets file,
>instructions can be found at
>http://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/TaggingPresets
>
>David
>


I'll second David's comments on this. Great to see some default presets back
in JOSM, that's Frederik for that (and Christoph's cool icons). I've been
using them as the default method of tagging since imi first incorporated
them and it's a much faster way of tagging when you can group a set of
common features together. The defaults that have been incorporated are a
good start but they are generally single tag sets rather than a grouping.
You will find that tagging can be enriched and undertaken much faster if the
single preset box contains more tagging items. For example, my highway
preset for ways includes:

name=, 
postal_code=, 
ref=,
highway=(combo), 
neighbourhood=(combo),
oneway=(checkbox), 
roundabout=(checkbox),

The xml for the above being:

<item name="Way: Highways">
    <label text="Tag a line Segment or Way as a Highway" />
    <text key="name" text="Name:" delete_if_empty="true"/>
    <text key="postal_code" text="Post Code" delete_if_empty="true"/>    
    <text key="ref" text="Ref (e.g. M6):" delete_if_empty="true" />
	<combo key="highway" text="Type or Class:"
values="motorway,trunk,primary,secondary,minor,unclassified,residential,serv
ice,track,cycleway,bridleway,footway,steps" default="unclassified"
delete_if_empty="true" />
    <combo key="abutters" text="Neighbourhood:"
values="residential,retail,commercial,industrial" delete_if_empty="true"/>
    <check key="roundabout" text="Segment or way is on a roundabout?"
default="off" />
    <check key="oneway" text="Primary method of passage is one way?"
default="off" />
  </item>


What would be really cool would be an interface in JOSM that allows one to
edit the preset file and change default values, add new tag/value defaults
etc using a default list to choose from. Then I'm sure we would see a lot
more people tagging this way and adding a lot more useful data.

Cheers

Andy