[OSM-talk] syj: preview of a web site to store routes, need your opinions :)

[arno]

Le mardi 27 juillet 2010, à 15:45:46 +0100, David a écrit : 

> Hi,

Hi david, and thanks for your comprehensive review of syj. I'll try to adress 
your points.

> I got a server error trying to save on my first attempt. Retrying it worked.

Good catch. I could reproduce it once. Then I could not reproduce it anymore 
:( I hope I will be able to fix it soon.

> 
> How do I get a URL of my route to share with someone? Presumably it
> is just the URL in the address bar after a save, but a "give me a
> URL" button or some such would be handy.

I'm not sure a button is the right way (I don't want to clutter the interface 
too much), but I need to give an easy way to get route url.

> 
> If I'm looking at a route, how do I then start a new one - there's
> no button for that. Ah, I just click "main page", but I think that
> will not be obvious enough.

you're right, link text probably needs to be changed.


> I think the need to login (or rather, create an account) is
> EXTREMELY offputting. It's the biggest single reason putting people
> off a website in general. I don't see why you need it - can't you
> store IDs and/or names without? (Or even encode the route in a URL).
> Like bit.ly for example.
> 
> Perhaps just offer logins for people who want their stuff kept
> private, but from my POV I'd just like a way to quckly sketch
> something and hand the URL to others. And why do you need my email,
> other than to make the registration process even more complicated? I
> might like to have the URL emailed to me, but I think it would be
> better to offer that as an option

The main reason a login is needed is to prevents spam or database attack. What 
happens when some random scripts send 10 http posts a second ? What if that 
happens while I'm offline for a week ? So, the registration process acts 
mainly like a captcha: I'm pretty sure there's a human involved at some point 
in the process.
Note that I only have experience administrating small sites, so my point may 
be not valid.
For example, may be I can use a captcha if user is not logged, and not use a 
captcha if user is logged.
Anyway, I've tried to make the registration as easy as possible: you don't 
have to go to another page, and you don't have to validate immediately.

> Do you need a "Save" at all? Why not save it live as they do it, so
> all you have to do is harvest the URL at the point you are ready.

I'm a big fan of live saving on desktop applications, but don't like it for 
web pages: it induces a lot of http requests and you need to try to "guess" 
when the user is inactive (because I don't want to save dozens of times when 
user drag and drops). In a previous projects, I had even tried to send an 
async request on page unload. That did not work very well :)

> 
> I don't think you need the home page to be .../idx. Just the website
> address is more conventional.

I'll fix that

> I would use something like this probably more to share a point or
> points than routes. I think you could improve it a lot by allowing
> separate points (and disjoint paths). Having labels and annotations
> for points (a la OpenStreetBugs) would be even nicer.

great idea, but that will need some more work, and also, a lot of thinking 
about the ui. I put it on my long term todo list.

> A much more complicated suggestion: for routes, allow snapping to
> points and ways. Obviously that requires a *lot* more in the works
> than just the map background which you're drawing on.

Yes, it would require a lot of work, but the main reasons I don't want to do 
that for syj are:
- some paths are not in osm, and I want people to be able to show a path, 
even if it does not exist in osm.
- depending on your mean of transport, you may want to snap bicycle ways, 
horse ways, footways, or car ways. If in your area there are a lot of 
different ways, snapping the right one may become easier.
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