[josm-dev] Gunter's Chain as a measurement unit

[Dirk Stöcker]

On Sun, 2 Aug 2015, Ray Sanders wrote:

> Hi, I am new to this list. Currently doing work with historical survey documents (USA, 1820-1860) which are all measured in chains, which are in fact Gunter's Chain (1 chain = 66 feet, 80 chains = 1 statute mile). Trying to add nodes, where the original document is measured in chains, and the display is in feet or miles, is a pain. I am trying to add these nodes to openhistoricalmaps, using JOSM. So, here it begins.
>
> I have past experience in coding Java, so I took a look at the source tree. After downloading the zip file, unpacking, and searching around thru the code, I identified two modules that were concerned with the current 4 measurement schemes. They are SystemOfMeasurement and ParallelWayAction. The changes to add Chain (as a 5th measurement scheme) appear to be minor, so I made those changes (on my local copy).
>
> Although these have not been committed, is this a change that would be appropriate for the main source tree ?
>
> I have no experience with SVN. If this is a desirable change, can I email these two source files to someone, who can look them over, decide if the changes are appropriate, and add them to the tree ?

I don't think that we want to add historical measurement units to JOSM. 
They are of no use today and there are simply too many of these.

And expert-config based settings to add user-defined units would be 
another case - E.g. an config name, where any user can add names and 
definitions for exotic formats.

It's a bit more complex to design it in a way to properly define such 
non-decimal units :-)

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