[OSM-talk] "Potlatch really hacks me off because..."

[tim]

>  >
>  > What little things like that annoy you, or took you a while to get used to?

There's quite a bit of "mystery meat" going on, which takes time to learn.
For example, the icons bottom left, will benefit from text underneath
them. (Yes, you can hover over them and wait for a few seconds to see
a tool tip, but that is only uncovering half of the mystery, the other
half is unveiled after clicking them).

I've also noticed new user's becoming confused finding stuff through
the presets - the icons of what they are should be augmented by text.
Trial and error to know that the amenity=pub can be found after
repeatedly hitting the icons, and exploring the options until the
camera one comes along. At present, you click on an icon, and text
list pops up: for those who are new to the interface, it's trial and
error to match up several icons with several lists. The left hand icon
changes to the next icon upon a click. "Whoops I should have clicked
the car one! click, click, click, click...damn I missed it again!" -
is a frequent operation, then most people switch to doing tags by
hand.
The right hand presets opens up a list. Why not have the left hand one
open a list too?

Keyboard shortcuts. Potlatch has "hidden codes" which do stuff. Hardly
anyone has two browser windows open, one showing the keyboard
commands, and the other the GUI, although they can tab across.
Regardless, they have to train their memory learning the keys,
combinations, commands and expected behaviours. A possible solution?
Having a cheat-sheet on the same page, or as a pop up message, that
opens over the map upon clicking text that says "help". They are not
"shortcuts" either, as they are they the only way to perform most
operations.

I still only use potlatch for basic stuff, as learning these commands
requires too much investment (want to do something, click help, tab to
wiki page, look for keyboard shortcuts link, open link, search for
command, forget what it was I wanted to do, tab back).