[Taginfo-dev] XAPI

[Ian Dees]

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 5:49 AM, David Paleino <d.paleino at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 12:22:28 +0200, Jochen Topf wrote:
>
> > Currently the XAPI and JOSM buttons are hardcoded to the XAPI server at
> > informationfreeway.org which is supposed to forward to a working
> instance of
> > the XAPI but doesn't. Or maybe there just is no working instance any
> more.
> >
> > Some of you have changed this to use a JAXPI server. I tried the OSMF
> JXAPI
> > server but that was horrendously slow.
>
> I just added a jXAPI button alongside the other two -- even if the
> "canonical"
> XAPI seems not working or terribly out-of-date.
>
> Regarding OSMF's JXAPI: I didn't find it to be slow, but I found that its
> limit of 10°-square bboxes is a problem sometimes.
>

You are only limited to 10 square degrees when performing queries with
bounding-boxes. You can still query the entire planet at once with tag
queries and no bounding box specified.


>
> > And I don't want to use the Mapquest server when I can avoid it, because
> I
> > don't want Taginfo to be dependent on a non-community server.
>
> +1
>

MapQuest is part of the community. You should be at least as comfortable
relying on it as you would on jxapi.osm.org.


>
> > Another problem is that http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/XAPI says to
> the
> > JXAPI servers: "relations not fully supported" whatever that means. I
> don't
> > want to link to something that can't work.
>
> I'm CCing Ian to understand this. Ian, could you please explain what's
> exactly
> "not supported" about relations? Any chance to fix this? Is the source
> available
> anywhere? (in case someone feels brave enough to try and provide a patch)
>

Source is here: https://github.com/iandees/xapi-servlet

Relations are supported but will not respond to bounding-box predicates. If
you ask for a relation inside a bounding box with tag type=route you'll end
up with all route relations in the world.


>
> > I have already been getting user complaints about this, so some solution
> would
> > be nice.
> >
> > This is a wider problem and has been for a long time. Lots of people
> depend on
> > the XAPI and the many problems with it have been really frustrating. I
> don't
> > think we can provide the perfect solution. But I guess we have to do
> > something.
> >
> > One option would be to let the user decide. Give him a drip-down menu or
> > something to choose which server she wants. But that requires coding and
> makes
> > the UI more complex.
>
> The 'coding' bit shouldn't be much of a problem -- it can be easily done in
> javascript I believe :) (I'm available to do it, if needed)
>
> But yes, it needs some thought about the positioning. I really like the
> buttons
> over there, but adding a dropdown menu breaks that layout a bit.
>

The solution is to charge for XAPI access in order to support a server
that's fast enough to do what you're looking for. Would you pay for it?
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