[josm-dev] JOSM Remote Control API and external tools

[Paul Hartmann]

On 02/15/2013 05:21 PM, the Old Topo Depot wrote:
> At present, tools such as MapRoulette (maproulette.org) rely on users to
> add a string to changeset comment to assist tracking editing activities
> associated with said tool.
>
> It would be useful and convenient to allow external tools to specify a
> changeset string fragment (suffix, for example) as part of the remote
> control command sent to JOSM when the editing activity is triggered.  I am
> soliciting feedback from the JOSM dev community on this matter, and will
> implement agreed upon changes when we arrive at a consensus.
>
> While I am aware that JOSM caches changeset strings, it is also possible
> for a use to employ several tools during an extended editing session, say
> MapRoulette and OSMI, and users are currently burdened with properly
> selecting a comment.
>
> Best and Thanks in Advance for your comments,

Can you give an example, how such an auto-generated changeset comment 
would look like? The users will probable make multiple edits and upload 
them all in one go. As Dirk pointed out, in addition to comment=*, 
created_by=* and source=*, you can add custom tags to the changeset. If 
it's just for bookkeeping, you can include an additional tag like 
maproulette:id=*, this is no problem.

In general I'm not opposed to assisting the user with choosing a good 
comment. If a changest comment has already been selected in a previous 
upload and the changeset is still open, we should probably not overwrite it.

Paul