[josm-dev] Audio user interface

[Chris Morley]

Being able to record a commentary hands-free while surveying and then 
use it in JOSM is a great liberation and a big advance by David Earl. 
But, like the rest of JOSM, it has been developed incrementally, which 
doesn't always make for the best user interface. So forgetting about the 
technical difficulties, what would the user (e.g. me) like to see? This 
is about the no way-point mode only, which I see as likely to be used 
more, if its interface was easy.

The orange progress maker is a great concept. Not only is is fun to see 
it moving, it also encapsulates the user understanding "I was here when 
I said this". So to provide "what I said when I was here" the obvious 
way is to move the marker - drag the orange marker, which would snap to 
a GPX track point. This would avoid the current annoying interference 
between the audio interface (clicking on an audio icon) and the normal 
JOSM interface (selection,  making nodes etc). It would also get rid of 
the blizzard of automatic audio markers (see 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Image:JOSMAudioMarkers2.png), 
which have positions that are arbitrary to the user, and which occupy 
more space than is justified by their usefulness.

Calibration is currently complicated and difficult to remember. With 
this proposal, the audio would be started and paused at the place you 
said NOW. The orange marker would then be SHIFT dragged to the 
geographical position that NOW corresponds to. It is is easy to 
understand "I *was* here when I said this", with the SHIFT implying 
coercion.

It would be good if the interface could show where you were speaking and 
where you were silent. Background noise makes this a challenge, but 
assuming that it could be achieved, the information could be presented 
as a slight enlargement of the gpx points or thickening of any line 
connecting them, so that the information can be found if it is looked 
for, but the presentation is not too overwhelming if it not.

Chris