[OSM-talk] Serious consideration of "Newbie Editor"

Ian Dees ian.dees at gmail.com
Thu Feb 25 14:32:57 GMT 2010


On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 8:16 AM, Emilie Laffray <emilie.laffray at gmail.com>wrote:

> On 25 February 2010 13:00, John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 25 February 2010 22:23, Emilie Laffray <emilie.laffray at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > A full Javascript implementation is certainly possible with some of the
>> new
>> > feature that are only in some browsers (read forget all browser except
>> for
>>
>> I think you are over playing this, the openlayers JS can already do a
>> lot in existing browsers and even IE, and if we're only talking about
>> a simple browser it doesn't need all the features that exist in JOSM
>> etc.
>>
>
> Sorry in advance for the mixed answers.
>
> I might over play it but I used to do some serious coding in JS for some
> time, and browser compatibilities and limitations were all too evident at
> the time. I suspect it has changed quite a bit with the new Javascript
> engines out there, but I suspect that some of the more advanced
> functionalities that you might need might have some problem in the end due
> to memory and cpu constraints. Someone mentioned Cartagen which is very
> interesting but still slow for a tool. Again, I don't mind being proven
> wrong. Ian's code could be a starting point for some interested coders.
>
> When I was playing with using a JavaScript editor, my thought was to do
what Google MapMaker does: show the slippy map without any primitives
downloaded for editing. If a user wants to edit something, they must first
click on it (which causes an API hit to download the way(s) and node(s)).
Afterwards, the way shows up as a line with draggable handles to change the
position. Also, a dialog for editing the tags (in a simple way).

Most of this is fairly trivial. The trickiest part is (a) making an API call
to return the way closest to a given pair of coordinates and (b) make it
fast enough for franticly-clicking newbies to not get upset when it doesn't
respond immediately.

Since all of this is fairly modal, a help screen could be shown on the left
describing what to do at each step of the way. i.e. "Find a road you'd like
to edit and click on it." (click) "Now, drag to change the position of the
road." (clickdragclick) "If you're done, click 'Save'! You're done!
Congratulations."

User stories for adding new POI and roads attached to existing roads might
be a little more complicated, but still doable.
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