[OSM-talk] Form to improve the OSMTracker tool.

[Andy Townsend]

On 06/08/2022 13:55, Simon Poole wrote:
>
> The thing is, it is -actually- no longer 2010 and the task of 
> collecting data while moving faster than walking speed has been 
> solved. Street-side imagery, that is with Mapillary, KartaView and so 
> on, with post-recording ML supported analysis so that it is easy to 
> find the interesting bits. This is safe, doesn't suffer from all the 
> issues pressing any kind of buttons while moving has, and the major 
> platforms are well supported in all major editors.
>
That is ... simply untrue.

If all you're interested in is what's adjacent to major roads in wealthy 
countries, then you may have a point, but I suspect that most people 
(even the author of Vespucci!) are interested in a bit more than that.  
Here:

https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=54.267470391951406&lng=-1.5037785704323596&z=8.519288211239532

is what Mapillary has for a swathe of the north of England.  At first 
glance it seems great for e.g. the hen-night hot-spots of York, but the 
reality:

https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=53.95787922426587&lng=-1.0787806460161846&z=18.704421429000508&pKey=2905699859747785&focus=map

is probably a bit less useful.  Away from major roads, there are 
snippets here and there, but essentially nothing.

It's rare I need to do "faster than walking speed data capture" since if 
travelling at that speed I'm usually driving, but anything to do that 
needs a really simple UI (arguably, even simpler than OsmTracker's 
"select items from multiple screens"). I tend to use a Garmin handheld 
for that -  to record something, the minimal involvement is just press a 
button twice (which you can do without even looking at it) and sort out 
what it was later.  https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/124411486 
was added based on information collected in exactly that way. Whenever 
I've used OsmTracker I tend to leave lots of text notes (the nearest 
functionality to "here is a thing and I'll sort it out later" that it 
has) without much text in them.

Mapping a function like that to a dedicated hardware button on phones 
that have them would be nice*.

Best Regards,

Andy

* e.g. 
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-remap-the-bixby-button/ , 
https://community.phones.nokia.com/discussion/44579/google-assistant-button-remap-workaround 
.  There are standalone button remappers out there, but, given the 
access they'll need to the device, would you trust them?