[josm-dev] JOSM Modeless???

[Gabriel Ebner]

On Wed, Oct 24, 2007 at 10:07:06AM -0400, Rick Collins wrote:
> I am new, so I don't know much about the previous user interface for 
> JOSM.  But I find it odd that the current one is called 
> "modeless".  I guess that is relative to the old.

Yes.  In the old interface each mode had several sub-modes, add-node for
example had modes for adding a single node, adding a node into a way and
adding a node to the end of an exisiting way (with key combinations to reuse
existing nodes and to insert nodes into an existing way).  On top of that, if
you wanted to switch to the add-node-into-way mode, you had to press Ctrl-N
once or twice, depending on what mode you were in...

> I have used any number of graphical editing tools and I don't find 
> JOSM to be particularly facile.  I will say that it is typically very 
> responsive, but the number of mouse moves and clicks required to get 
> much work done seems excessive.  There are several simple operations 
> that require creation, merging and deletion of multiple nodes and ways.
> 
> For example, if I want to make two ways share a common node, I have 
> to add a node to one way, extend the way to a point on the other way, 
> continue that back to the first way.  Then I have to disconnect the 
> existing section of the first way that is being bypassed and delete 
> it.  Finally, I have to combine the new way sections with the 
> existing way and delete the new nodes.  Instead, it would be nice to 
> have a feature to just allow nodes on two ways to be merged.

A function that does exactly that is in the utilsplugin.

> Another one is the delete function.  I have never seen any other tool 
> with a delete that worked like the delete in JOSM.  If you have 
> anything selected when you click the delete button it is 
> deleted.  Then on top, the mode has changed to delete and anything I 
> click is now deleted.  I can't tell you how many times I have had to 
> use the undo feature to recover from trying to select something only 
> to delete it.  Wouldn't it be much, much simpler to just use the 
> delete button to delete whatever is selected?  Why do we need a 
> delete mode at all?

The delete mode will soon be split into a delete command and a delete mode.
It was originally planned to remove the delete mode in the course of making
JOSM modeless, but I decided to keep it since it is useful to remove
superfluous nodes from a way.

> One feature I would love to see could facilitate the use of track 
> data for generating ways.  Rather than use JOSM as electronic tracing 
> paper to draw ways over top of the tracks, I would like to have a 
> means to select nodes from the track to be transferred to a new 
> way.  In essence, let the track define the points and I am just 
> culling the ones that are superfluous to the way.  I think this could 
> be facilitated by letting JOSM tell you which points can be 
> eliminated and keeping the way to within a user specified distance of 
> the track.  In fact, I am working on a tool to test how well this can 
> work.  When I am done, I will be happy to share the algorithm, or 
> perhaps I will learn to code in Java and I can share the code.

You can convert a GPS layer into a data layer, and then remove the parts that
are already mapped.  That way you don't have to manually trace long
countryside tracks.  However this isn't encouraged because you can
inadvertently produce duplicate ways if you didn't take care to only convert
the parts that aren't mapped yet.

As for "culling superfluous nodes":  The utilsplugin contains a
way-simplification feature that does exactly that.

> Lastly, it would be very nice to be able to see the name of the 
> action to be undone or redone.  It is more than once that I can't 
> tell if I moved an object when I selected it.  If I undo and it was 
> not moved, I then have undone something else and have to figure out 
> what that was.  The redo button is not always available for a given action.

Alt-O will show you a list of all undoable actions in the sidebar on the right.

  Gabriel.