[OSM-talk] N00b experiences

[Nick Whitelegg]

Hello Christoph,

> Thus I downloaded the java tool to my machine, but it didn't start and
> gave me an error message instead. Finally, I managed to do a svn
> checkout of osmeditor and compiled it. Though there were lots of
> warnings, it did compile and it runs, so I was able to upload some
> streets (even that loading tiled maps made it very lame, so I stopped
> using map overlays).

What do you mean by 'very lame' - slow? TBH I'm surprised as Nick Hill's 
recent database query speed improvements have made it very quick for me - so 
quick in fact, one can almost use it as a realtime OSM browser (on both Linux 
and Windows) though I wouldn't recommend using it solely for this purpose - 
it'll hit the database more than is needed.

You can also do "Download OSM from net" - this will download all OSM data in 
the currently viewed area. If tiled download is too slow I'd recommend this - 
it will also be slow at first but once you have the data, no more downloads 
are needed.

Whichever you choose, you do ideally need to work with live OSM data present, 
otherwise you might create segments and ways which are already there.

> Though it worked, I'd wish some features it doesn't provide yet. As I
> just have read that the openstreetmap user base constantly increases, I
> postulate that one very important requirement for openstreetmap.org is
> the need to improve/simplify the tools to contribute content. Currently
> it seems to be very difficult to new users. Projects like Wikipedia.org
> never wouldn't have been that successful if editing wasn't that simple.
>
> So my main question is: Do you agree that the editing tools need
> improvements? If so: Are there enough hackers who are willing to spend
> some spare time in improving (e.g.) osmeditor2? I for myself are
> willing to help, but my programming skills are rather limited (though I
> can write some Qt4 code). Somehow I'm very glad that there is a tool
> written in Qt4, because this makes it platform independent and I
> personally dislike Java.

Yes, osmeditor2 does need improvements, particularly in the usability area and 
yes, I would welcome anyone wanting to help me hack on it as I have only a 
certain amount of spare time. I'm aiming to do some osmeditor2 work before 
the end of this month but am also involved in coding other OSM-related 
software so any help would be welcome.

That's an offer which goes out to anyone, BTW :-)

Nick