[OSM-newbies] JOSM beginner

Lars Aronsson lars at aronsson.se
Thu Mar 22 00:47:51 GMT 2007


I've joined the newbies list since that's how I feel.  I have 
installed Sun Java 1.5 and the latest JOSM (snapshot 203).  I'm 
running Ubuntu Linux.

When I start JOSM, I can open a local GPX or OSM file, and the 
visual area will be zoomed in to cover that part of the map.  But 
if I don't have a local file, and instead I only want to download 
data from the server, how do I specify the right coordinates?
Am I supposed to know the latitude and longitude by numbers?
Is there any way to search for a city name from JOSM?  There is a 
zoomable map in the download dialog, but it doesn't show any 
existing ways.  If I try to grab a too big area, the server will 
refuse the download with a HTTP 400 error, and JOSM doesn't try to 
explain the reason or split the download into smaller chunks.

My second question goes beyond JOSM:

After I have edited the map and successfully uploaded the new ways 
to the server, what happens next?  I guess I should get involved 
in Tiles at Home to help updating the Osmarender tiles?  Is there any 
queue where I can watch my changes turn into tiles?  How long does 
it take on average?  Do these renderers first wait for the new 
Planet.osm to be produced (each Wednesday)?  So a week is a normal 
waiting time?  Or far longer than that?

Some background: I'm [[user:LA2]] on the OSM wiki since May 2005, 
but always used the Java applet and have mostly drawn line 
segments without creating ways, which was the state of the art a 
year ago. All this JOSM and Osmarender stuff is new to me.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se




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