[Potlatch-dev] Status of potlatch2 development?

[Steve Bennett]

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 6:39 AM, Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net> wrote:
> So, the question is: what purpose does P2 serve when iD is live and the
> default?
>
> I think there's two principal niches. One is working with third-party data,
> as per Snapshot Server and vector background layers. P2 does this very well
> and there's no support for it in iD. P2 looks like it'll be the go-to
> solution for projects like the DfT cycling data for a while yet.
>
> Secondly, there's simply the comfort of editing. I find P2 to be a very
> efficient and enjoyable editor to work with, which is perhaps not too
> surprising, but there are plenty of others who think so too. A comparable
> spot in the editor market to Merkaartor, if you like. But we do need to be
> aware that Flash Player is no longer a given, and I suspect that in a year's
> time, market penetration even on the desktop will be lucky to hit 80%.
>
> That second reason means that, for me at least, the priority is to get a
> version of P2 up and running on Adobe AIR. We can, of course, still have an
> online build too (especially for the third-party data use) and I see no
> reason why P2 can't continue as a selectable option on the osm.org Edit
> drop-down. Exasperatingly, AIR on Linux is limited to version 2.6, which I
> think equates to Flash Player 10.3.

Thanks for the update on this interesting situation. I haven't played
with iD until just now. The GUI looks excellent, and I love the modal
editing (press 2 then click to create a POI - no fiddly double
clicking). Looks like no tag templates ("features") yet, but
presumably underway. So, it looks like I'm not in either niche, and
will presumably switch to iD soon.

A few questions then about iD development:
- are the internals at all similar to Potlatch? Is it feasible to port
any features (ie, back-end node/way manipulations) over? I know
ActionScript isn't exactly JavaScript, but...
- is there a specified direction or policy on what kinds of advanced
features will be allowed in? Is iD intended only as a beginners'
editor? Can advanced features be included?
- has there been any discussion about an openstreetmap.org version vs
a MapBox version? Perhaps the former would have a different policy on
the previous question...


> For the small remaining time that P2 is the default editor on osm.org, I'm
> happy to - indeed, would seek to - remain the maintainer of that instance.
> Any pull requests that can be instantly and confidently merged, I will (and
> do) merge promptly. Anything that requires a day's work for me to understand
> isn't going to happen; I can't afford to give a day away like that.

Here's a couple I prepared earlier:

1)
https://github.com/systemed/potlatch2/pull/66

It fixes a centroid calculation bug. You can very quickly verify that
it works and doesn't catastrophically fail.

2)
https://github.com/systemed/potlatch2/pull/58/files

This will not unduly tax your cerebral resources.

3)
https://github.com/systemed/potlatch2/pull/49

Stylistic considerations aside, this is an easy one.

4)
https://github.com/systemed/potlatch2/pull/36

Aesthetic considerations aside, this is also easy.

I will grant you that the following pull requests are non-trivial to
understand, but are also pretty easy to verify. And considering that
the *current situation* is producing bad data, the risks are probably
justified.
https://github.com/systemed/potlatch2/pull/67
https://github.com/systemed/potlatch2/pull/33

It's still sad to see those poor pull requests sitting there - if you
had any idea how many hours those two bug fixes took. *sigh*

> That doesn't, however, stop anyone from running their own forked instances,
> and indeed that should be valuable in proving that a particular pull request
> will work or otherwise. So, Steve, I would encourage you to put your own
> build of P2 somewhere and people can then play with and test that as a
> prelude to getting them merged into the github.com/systemed repository
> later.

Yeah, it's a good idea. I'm not sure of the logistics, but I'll have a
go. If I provide a merged .swf, is there anywhere you or someone could
host it?

> Personally I think maintaining a standalone desktop editor will be a whole
> bunch more fun. It frees up P2 to be P2, rather than everyone's first
> experience of contributing to OSM; it's more realistically forkable (anyone
> can offer a build for download); the UI doesn't have to be constrained by
> the browser window; performance should be better; it's less likely to
> attract the BAN crowd; and we can dump trac and use something sane.

For my part, I'm 100% a web guy. I barely use any desktop apps at all
these days and would live in a browser if I could. And the motivation
of contribution to P2 has always been about working on "the
OpenStreetMap editor". Not some advanced tool used by a few hardcore
types. But that's purely a personal, aesthetic view.

> [1] Apart from rendering all nodes, rather than just those in the currently
> selected way... that's a bit too GIS-like for me. But nothing's perfect, and
> to have that as my only gripe with it demonstrates exactly how good it is.

When you're trying to merge one edge each of two adjacent areas (eg, a
park and a cemetery), P2's behaviour can be quite annoying...:)

Steve