[Talk-GB] Editor backbground layers in iD
Andy Townsend
lists at mail.atownsend.org.uk
Sat Nov 9 12:40:21 UTC 2013
On 09/11/13 11:58, Rob Nickerson wrote:
>
> As you have seen my responses at [1] and [2], it will come as no
> surprise that I oppose this move. I have set out my reasoning below:
Hi Rob, hi Paul,
I'll not venture into the "how" of this only the "what"...
Let's think about it from the perspective of the new mapper. Let's
imagine that they've decided to add something to OSM and they've
ventured into iD for the first time. There's a nice walkthrough, but if
I recall it doesn't mention much about background imagery, but there's
an entry on the help that says "there's some imagery in addition to the
default Bing layer".
When the new mapper clicks the imagery button at the right they
currently see ALL of the geographically available layers from
https://github.com/osmlab/editor-imagery-index (currently the bottom of
the menu is cut off - see https://github.com/systemed/iD/issues/1929 -
but that issue is fixed pending release).
Let's not kid ourselves - not all of those layers are like the others.
In GB, the Bing imagery layer, Local GPX file, GPS traces and OS
OpenData StreetView are likely to be the most useful, and probably in
that order. A Bartholomew 1/2 inch from the Victorian era is likely to
be ... less so. We need to provide new mappers with relevant
information, sometimes even if that means less information.
No-one's proposing restricting what mappers can choose as a background
in JOSM, and the background layers in Potlatch 2 aren't going to change
any time soon, but in the instance of iD that new mappers see when they
select "edit" from the menu on osm.org it does make sense NOT to offer
them an OS 7th series that isn't even available everywhere in GB as the
top option in the menu.
Cheers,
Andy
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