[OSM-talk] State of JOSM

[Martijn van Oosterhout]

On Dec 9, 2007 1:02 PM, Ulf Lamping <ulf.lamping at web.de> wrote:
> P.S: It would help a lot more if people are describing their workflows
> to explain where the problems are: "when I want to add a node then I
> first click ...". Simply complaining "I don't like this" doesn't help
> the developers in any way to improve the current situation ...

Being in NL I don't spend much time mapping new things, rather, most
of my time goes into fixing up existing stuff. And fixing coastlines.
My biggest issues are:

- If I'm editing a bit of data I've never seen before I have to
identify what's what. This involving lots of selection and invariably,
lots of accedental moves. I end up just using middle-click for
everything 'cause at least that way I can see what's happening. A
seperate tool is one way, but another possibility is marking a layer
Read-Only. Then I can click to my hearts content without having to hit
undo all the time. (Laptop touchpad may have something to do with it).

- Now I've found a bit of coastline that needs extending. It's
selected so I can see where it ends. Now I hit the line making tool
and click. Nothing happens. Oh yes, you have to unselect everything
before you can extend a way. Now, common breakages are where rivers
and the sea meet, and when you draw a line from a point where two ways
end, which way does it extend? Random I suppose. The wierd thing is
that if you start drawing a way it gets selected and then you don't
have to unselect anything, it just works.

- When cleaning up area of unused nodes, you used to be able to just
select all the nodes and hit delete and viola, it wouldn't delete
nodes that were used by ways. Now it deletes those nodes too. Maybe
more logical, but it still gets me everytime.

I'm not in a position to complain, it just feels like JOSM is geared
more to adding new stuff and maintaining stuff got harder. I should
probably also say I have a problem with modeless interfaces in
general. There is no single interface that is intuitive for everyone.
All modeless does is increase the complexity of the rules that decide
what to do when you click/drag at any particular moment. All these
rules have to be learned, modes or not. I don't use JOSM often enough
to remember the rules, so every editing session adds new surprises.

Have a nice day,
-- 
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog at gmail.com> http://svana.org/kleptog/