[Merkaartor] Why so many modes?

[Dirk Stöcker]

On Sun, 18 Jul 2010, James Ewen wrote:

>> Even a Potlatch-style editing exists (which means you can automatically
>> switch to add mode by clicking twice in select mode - which is a bit
>> dangerous like it is in Potlatch, so very few people use it).
>
> Can you explain your statement? How is double-clicking to add a node
> dangerous? I was just doing some editing in Merkaartor, and entered
> into Add Node mode, I then went to select a node, and ended up adding
> a new node with a single click
> (actually added a few as I kept clicking to try and select the node I
> wanted). If double clicking to add a new node is dangerous, then
> single clicking would by inference be twice as dangerous. However,
> with a simple click of the undo button, my dangerous action was
> revoked.

If I look at the way I and others use JOSM, then I see that adding new 
nodes and ways is very seldom compared to viewing, selecting and modifying 
something (and if done, then it is done in one go which perfectly fits an 
"add mode"). The modeless editing makes adding more comfortable, but also 
means that wrong clicks and unwanted selections result in more unwanted 
nodes which aren't always detected by their authors. I deleted many of 
these from database already (usually created by Potlatch).

So the program needs to decide how easy adding should be. For JOSM we 
decided to stop before the 100% modeless state and expect users to press 
'A' or select add mode before starting. Merkaartor has a similar concept. 
Maybe Merkaartor does need some finetuning here as well as JOSM did in the 
last year, but I had a short look at current merkaartor and I think it 
already improved a lot since I last looked at.

>> I think the modeless editing as well as the virtual nodes did greatly
>> enhance the workflow of JOSM. Merkaartor already has virtual nodes, so maybe
>> the next step should be modeless editing?
>
> What are virtual nodes? I see references to them in some notes about
> 0.15, but no explanations.

For JOSM this means in the middle of a way a cross-like node is displayed 
and a soon as it is moved a new real node is created there. Same for 
merkaartor. This speeds up changing existing ways a lot compared to the 
select, add, move, select, move, add, ... switching (as usually you do 
not know in advance where you need new nodes and where moving is enough).

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