[OSM-talk] State of JOSM

[Ray Booysen]

Fantastic email.  Thanks Frederik!On 12/9/07, Frederik Ramm <
frederik at remote.org> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> > What are everyone else's thoughts on the matter?  I would prefer JOSM to
> > act the way it did before just without an add segments option, it would
> > mean an easier method (for me at least) of adding data.
>
> It takes a bit of getting used to but once you get the hang of it it
> really is much better than what we had before; I have had *many*
> reports of heavy duty mappers saying how they disliked it at first but
> have now gotten the hang of it.
>
> I am sure there are many glitches that we still need to iron out. For
> example I would like to make this whole "modifier key" business more
> configurable.
>
> In fact you can almost emulate the old behaviour this way:
>
> * Enter the "add" mode
> * hold Shift
> * set any number of nodes by clicking
>
> This is roughly equivalent to the simple "add node" mode before.
>
> If you, later, select one node and then click on another, already
> existing, node in "add" mode, then "segments" will be drawn between
> them and appended to the current way (click with "alt" key to start a
> new way). This is roughly equivalent to the "add segment" mode that
> you had before.
>
> And at the same time, when you click somewhere where there's no node
> yet, a new one is created, which is the same as the "add node and
> connect" mode before.
>
> So the change is really not that huge if bring just a little bit of
> flexibility to the table, and in a dynamic project like ours we simply
> cannot afford to support "legacy" styles for ever. Changes will be
> made, and will be made to JOSM in the future, that will require people
> to adjust the way they work. If it were possible to offer everyone the
> interface he has grown used to, forever, I'd probably aim to do that
> in order not to upset people but that would require so much work as to
> make any progress unlikely.
>
> If you care to look at  http://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/11, you
> will find that the removal of "modes" in JOSM has been an issue for
> over a year, raised as one of the first issues on the JOSM trac by Imi
> himself. It is something that was long discussed, and mentioned in
> several posts on the lists, so anyone could have taken the opportunity
> to influence the process.
>
> We're very open to constructive criticism. However our primary aim is
> to make JOSM "absolutely usable" (i.e. usable to people new to JOSM)
> instead of "relatively usable" (i.e. usable to people already
> acquainted with JOSM). This may seem unfair since we should design for
> those already doing the work and not for those expected to start
> tomorrow, but remember that this is an exponential growth project:
> During the next month alone, the number of people having their first
> JOSM session will probably be greater than the number of existing JOSM
> users.
>
> So. We're trying to become better and any help is appreciated. It is
> not unthinkable to write a plugin that offers the old user interface,
> if there is really a pressing need for this, but I'll not be the one
> to write it as I prefer to look forward.
>
> I am not saying the current way JOSM works is perfect but I am pretty
> sure it is better than the endless mode switching we had before. We
> haven't changed a lot since the "modeless" implementation but that is
> not because we believe that what we have is final, just that we wanted
> to let it settle a bit and make sure that everyone gets some exposure
> and collect their feedback and comments before we soldier on.
>
> Anyone willing to participate in JOSM development, be that by
> submitting code or by discussing sensible changes to the user
> interface, is welcome to join the josm-dev list.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'
>
>


-- 
Ray Booysen
raybooysen at rjb.za.net
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