[OSM-talk] New Download Dialog for JOSM

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

>>> 2) URL from www.osm.org... I don't understand what it does.
>>
>> see http://josm.eigenheimstrasse.de/wiki/Help/Action/Download
>
> The name finder ( http://www.frankieandshadow.com/osm/ ) also  
> produces a
> compatible URL, so you search for a name and then can copy and  
> paste the URL
> it displays into JOSM (though for a city,the zoom is probably  
> smaller than
> you want).

I didn't want to provide a name finding tab in JOSM right away, but  
the new internal dialog structure would pave the way for plugins  
making external data sources available. It should really be no more  
than 50 lines of code to make a plugin that pulls in David's name  
finder, or a postcode-to-location service, or other things.

When I started working on JOSM I had lots of ideas and when  
discussing them with Imi, he very often said "I'd rather not have  
that in the core, a plugin can do that perfectly", and meanwhile I  
like that approach myself. Plugins do make the world a little more  
complicated, but they have two great advantages: Firstly, anyone can  
experiment with his/her own plugin without having to submit patches  
to JOSM (and thus unaffected by the strict JOSM quality standards  
*cough*), and secondly, every user can select the set of plugins that  
he or she likes. Together, this takes a big load off the shoulders of  
the core developers.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'