[OSM-talk] New technology ...

Tom MacWright tom at macwright.org
Sun Jul 21 16:19:01 UTC 2013


Hi Lester,

The most productive way to lead to better routing on OSM is to find 'bad'
routes, generate permalinks on OSRM or your favorite tool, and post bug
reports, including what the desired route would be and what's incorrect
about the incorrect route. For OSRM in particular the bug tracker is here:
https://github.com/DennisOSRM/Project-OSRM/issues and you can click
'Generate Link' on the testing instance: http://map.project-osrm.org/ in
order to send a specific route around.

Tom


On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Lester Caine <lester at lsces.co.uk> wrote:

> Tom MacWright wrote:
>
>> Hey Lester,
>>
>> I agree entirely - thus far we aren't focusing on the mobile version of
>> the
>> site. It's never been very polished, and recent changes aren't focused on
>> improving it significantly.
>>
>> As far as why, it's pretty simple - changes to the site are extremely
>> time-intensive because of its myriad uses and the necessity of having a
>> community process. That is, we've needed to focus on specific parts of
>> the site
>> because, even if we agree that many things need to be done, we only have
>> enough
>> designers & developers to implement one or two things a month.
>>
> And some of us are hampered by the choose of tools that was made
> previously!
>
>
>  I think there are two solid ways forward here:
>>
>> First, which is admittedly less likely, is if anyone wants to adopt the
>> task of
>> maintaining, testing, and improving the mobile site, and pushing those
>> changes
>> through.
>>
> There are a few options as a good starting point, but your 'third' point
> is probably accurate here.
>
>
>  Second, which is more doable but more likely to get over-communicated, is
>> for
>> someone to write a simple page pointing to good mobile options. For
>> instance,
>> users of GPS units should easily find out about Garmin extracts,
>> smartphone
>> users should easily find editors that work on their phone or apps that use
>> OpenStreetMap data.
>>
> http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/**Mobile+Computing<http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/Mobile+Computing>:)
> But I'm getting bogged down by what does not work in each of the options
> and I don't have time to try the options that are missing. I need to switch
> from Locus to one of the other options just to establish where the
> identified safety issues actually arise from! If you can't trust a
> configuration then it's unusable, and that is part of the current problem.
>
>
>  Independent OSM-based tools do a better job at the very specific use-cases
>> people have on mobile - whereas the website focuses strongly on one use
>> case,
>> editing, and has no smartphone-compatible editors.
>>
> Adding data via the tablet is easier than actually using it on the tablet
> ...
>
>
>  (To tackle the inevitable points of argument that follow that: yes, there
>> are
>> things that do this, but we need to do better. No, there's no committee to
>> decide and yes the best way to do it is to do it, even if it's very
>> low-tech.)
>>
> We need well documented user reports on the available tools rather than
> just 'choose the option that works for you' ... I have yet to find a
> routing package that gives SAFE directions on UK motorways! This was the
> whole reason for my closer investigation.
>
>  Tom
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 11:26 AM, Lester Caine <lester at lsces.co.uk
>> <mailto:lester at lsces.co.uk>> wrote:
>>
>>     With the arrival of a 'new' set of controls, and the discussion on
>> front
>>     page, I feel that it IS necessary to open this discussion a little
>> wider.
>>     Having been using the new interface on mobile devices I find it much
>> less
>>     usable than the older set-up. But that is not to say that the old one
>> was
>>     actually usable! There is a need for a different map interface that
>> works
>>     better with mobile devices. Even the routing demos have mixed results
>> on
>>     tablets and mobile phones. I've been working on my own 'front end'
>> simply to
>>     provide one that I can tailor for the devices I am using. The old
>> N900 used
>>     to work well, but the newer devices are difficult to use 'on the go'.
>> As an
>>     example, the old TomTom sat nav was easy to use while driving, but the
>>     current replacements I've tried to use with the Galaxy4 can be
>> dangerous at
>>     times as they wander off doing their own thing, and you have to stop
>> to get
>>     back to a state where you can continue following the route.
>>
>>     It's obvious that the new map interface is not designed for mobile
>> devices,
>>     so where should we discuss that development and how it would fit in
>> with an
>>     improved front end. It's not just a matter of directing to 'a map'
>> but more
>>     important is directing to safe options for those of us who ARE using
>> the
>>     tools every day. The current options are both difficult to find, and
>> have
>>     clear information on how safe they are when using them live!
>> Disclaimers of
>>     accepting no responsibility may cover any legal liability, but
>> essentially
>>     say 'here is a tool - but you should never use it!'
>>
>>     And discussion on a more open platform would also be appreciated
>> rather than
>>     on development platforms that we do not subscribe to because we use
>>     different development tools!
>>
>
> --
> Lester Caine - G8HFL
> -----------------------------
> Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=**contact<http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact>
> L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
> EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
> Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk
> Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.**uk<http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk>
>
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