[OSM-talk] [josm-dev] JOSM Modeless???

[Rick Collins]

At 11:05 AM 10/24/2007, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>Hi,
>
> > For example, if I want to make two ways share a common node
>
>You mean there are existing ways with existing nodes that you want to
>merge? Use "merge nodes" from the Utils plugin. There has also been a
>patch to include "merge nodes" in the JOSM core but that hasn't been
>applied (yet?) because we're still discussing the best way to do this.

Ok, that's good.  Someone else indicated that if the nodes don't yet 
exist, I can click on a point where the two ways intersect and it 
will created a shared node.  That should help a lot.  I need this a 
lot since I typically import a GPX layer into a data layer and then 
merge that with the existing data.

My real point was that there are tasks that are fairly verbose in 
terms of the mouse actions required.  Another example is adding 
multiple nodes to an existing way.  I have to click the Draw Node 
button, then place the node, click the Select button, click in an 
empty spot to unselect the node just created, then start over with 
clicking the Draw Node button.  Just as deleting multiple objects is 
somewhat tedious without a delete mode, adding multiple nodes is 
tedious with the current Draw Node function.  In addition, this 
creates a lot of unintended ways when I forget to unselect the last 
node drawn.  I'm not trying to criticize, just trying to point out 
areas for improvement.  There are several areas where I find I have 
to do a lot of mouse clicks to do one thing.  I guess I should just 
discuss them here one at a time.


>Yes, this will change. We will have a delete menu item/delete action
>triggered by the delete key which deletes what you have selected, and
>a delete mode which deletes everything you click on.

Ok, that sounds great.


> > Why do we need a
> > delete mode at all?
>
>It is very handy for some people, e.g. to thin out a way which has too
>many nodes - without a delete mode you would either have to select all
>nodes first (shift-click shift-click shift-click) then use the delete
>action, or you would have to click-delete-click-delete...
>
> > One feature I would love to see could facilitate the use of track
> > data for generating ways.  Rather than use JOSM as electronic tracing
> > paper to draw ways over top of the tracks, I would like to have a
> > means to select nodes from the track to be transferred to a new
> > way.  In essence, let the track define the points and I am just
> > culling the ones that are superfluous to the way.  I think this could
> > be facilitated by letting JOSM tell you which points can be
> > eliminated and keeping the way to within a user specified distance of
> > the track.
>
>There is a non-JOSM tool for this and efforts are under way to make a
>JOSM plugin from that. I don't know who is acutally working on it (is
>anybody?) but I'm sure your input would be welcome!

I am always happy to give my opinion ;^)

If the curve approximation routine is provided to facilitate 
importing GPX files as data, that would do the job quite well.  I 
find that the first step in doing this is to cull the points.  Then 
the track needs to be broken into the separate ways.  It might 
actually be better to reverse these two steps which is hard if using 
an external tool.  So it would be great to be able to import the 
data, then cut it into ways, then apply the curve approximation 
routine.  If the routine works well enough to not require touchup, 
then I would say that is perfect!


> > Lastly, it would be very nice to be able to see the name of the
> > action to be undone or redone.  It is more than once that I can't
> > tell if I moved an object when I selected it.
>
>Good idea to include that. Meanwhile you can also have the "edit
>history" dialog open and look at the most recent entries there.

Actually this is perfect.  I don't even have to go to the menu to see 
it!  The next step would be to make select work without making tiny 
moves to the thing selected...


Rick