[josm-dev] "Add nodes" functionality changed?

[Dirk Stöcker]

On Mon, 9 Mar 2009, David Earl wrote:

> I've just gone back through my mail, and I have nothing with your name
> on it about these changes, unless it is buried in something with an
> unrelated subject heading. They just appeared. I only updated Friday
> after a long period of using an older version in the mid 900s(*).

Well. I got the mails. They are in this thread.

> We've had lots of suggestions over the last couple of years about ways
> to restructure the interaction and modifiers, reduce dependence on modes
> and so on. I think some discussion might have been in order before
> anything fairly fundamental like this was changed.

The SHIFT usage is nothing fundamental. I doubt that more than 1% of users 
know how to use SHIFT in draw mode.

You have 3 ways to replace this:
a) Press <ESC> instead of Shift
b) Press <U> instead of Shift
c) Double-Click to end drawing a node.

Methods a and b are long-time and only c is new.

So the question really is, why do we need 4 ways for one function? I 
think 3 are enough. Especially as the SHIFT-Modifier has not been removed 
only to remove it, but has got a new meaning.

> My feeling is that it should be possible to have a switchable
> interaction style so you can choose your favourite, or we can come to a
> consensus on which works best by developing new ones or variations
> without upsetting the status quo until there is a broad agreement.

No. The code is already complex enough and getting it working right took 
many iterations. There are still some yet undebugged cases when the 
modifiers, pointers and reactions are handled incorrectly. Introducing 
switchability here will make it much worser.

If someone is willing to implement preferences to the shortcuts stuff 
which allows to assign the modifiers - feel free to do it. But only 
changing the modifiers - no different semantics.

> (*) by the way, older JOSMs no longer display the message of the day
> apparently, which was partly the point of having them - that people with
> older versions get to know about mandatory and optional changes in later
> versions they don't have, not jsut what's new in the version you *do*

Well, that is caused by the server update. There is nothing I can do 
against this.

> have. Also it broke my paint colors until I realised I had to remove my
> custom mappaint XML reference from the days when I had a plugin. That
> took ages to track down. That'll teach me to keep up with the cutting edge.

Not the cutting edge please. But following josm-tested.jar is usually a 
good idea.

Ciao
-- 
http://www.dstoecker.eu/ (PGP key available)