[OSM-talk] The OSM Applet - let's ditch it for JOSM (was: Mapping Reading, some impressions)

[Richard Fairhurst]

Tom wrote:

> It seems that for 99% of people actually actively mapping, JOSM is the
> main tool of choice (no offense to other editor writers).  How about
> we ditch the applet and put a page about JOSM on the edit tab?
> Download links, how to navigate to the area you were just viewing, a
> full tutorial, etc.  I don't think at the moment it would hurt OSM one
> bit if JOSM became an 'official' client and there was no web-based
> editing solution.

If we do this, could I suggest we keep the applet online, but maybe  
put an 'interstitial' when you click the Edit tab? Something like:

    Welcome, new editor!

    You can edit Openstreetmap in several different ways:

    ( ) Install JOSM on your computer (fast, requires Java 1.5)
    ( ) Use the web-based editor (slower, requires Java, no install needed)
    ( ) Find out more about different editors

    Please select one.

If we were feeling clever we could save the preference for future visits.

(FWIW there's surely nothing wrong with the applet per se - to the  
contrary, there's some neat design in there. It just shows up a few  
wider OSM problems.)

> Everyone agrees it's unusable... and
> yet nobody is stepping up to do something about it.

The Flash editor (with which both Nick W and Mikel have offered to  
help) is coming on fast, so we _are_ doing something... honest!

cheers
Richard