[OSM-talk] Newbie - queries and usability suggestions

[David Earl]

> name_direction=-1 is deprecated.  Use osmarender:nameDirection=-1 in
preference to do the same thing.

How are we supposed to know that? osmarender acts on it, and lots of nodes
have it. If you want to deprecate something, how about converting the old to
the new in the database? (Obviously not appropriate always, but here I think
it is). Much better solution by the way, I just wish it was easier to find
these things out.

> You can use osmarender:renderName=no to suppress names in this situation.

Ditto. Nice to know. Where are these special osmarender tags documented?

> Sadly I've not yet found a way to make Osmarender be smarter in these
cases.

If I understand how osmarender works, I'm not sure it can. I think this has
to be done algorithmically. I think there's a lot more that could be
improved by an algorthmic rather than rule based rendering, in particular
placing of labels and detection of adjacent ways with the same name. As I've
been cycling round Cambridge I've been thinking about how I would approach
this problem, so maybe I'll try to put my money where my mouth is at some
point.

David.