rkiddy
commented
9 years ago There should be something where platform-specific issues are discussed for a beginner. I have been using iD with Firefox on an Ubuntu 14.04 system on my laptop. That editor seems to have problems. I would create a shape on a building and then I had to jump through hoops to get the shape-helper icons. Click on something else, click on a blank area, click on another window and come back, click and wait a second and click again. I never could figure out exactly what I had to do to get the shape-tool icons reliably. With this quick guide, I tried JOSM and it works much better with this keyboard. A Linux-specific guide might mention this kind of thing. Certainly there are differences in the control keys and such and this can be a blocking issue for new users.
jmarlena
Nick-Tallguy
This looks as if it could make a very good 'quick start guide'
From emails to HOT on 06/03/2015
Right the basic idiot guide.
First write down your OSM userid and password.
For task 917 we only care about highways, settlements and buildings. Buildings if only because if there is one in isolation sometimes we like to map it rather than call it a landuse=residential.
Start JOSM up, in the edit menu you'll find preferences down the bottom.
We need to allow HOT to remotely control JOSM to feed it the bit to map. So look for the remote control, usually second button up on the left. Click enable remote control, ignore the rest.
Now we need to add a plugin, fourth tile down is the plugin button. Download the list. Look for buildings_tool they're in alphabetical order, click it and ignore the rest.
go to http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/917
Read the instructions.
Click on a tile, click on start mapping, select edit with JOSM.
Switch back to JOSM and you'll find its pulled in the existing OSM map for the tile.
We want to look at the imagery so look across the top, File, Edit etc until you reach Imagery, for this one we will be using Bing so select Bing.
Now we need to trace over the image. We'll use two buttons directly under file, the top one is select, the second one is draw nodes. Hover the mouse over them to display the tags.
Zoom in to the image, generally speaking I zoom so that roughly 90 meters shows on the scale. Personally I start at the top right corner and use to scan the image.
The following is not the official way to do things but its fast. Draw round each settlement but don't tag it. If you're lucky enough to find a road joining settlements draw the highway in again don't tag it. As you go draw round each settlement you see on the road. Stick to one type of highway omit the others for the moment.
The upload button is the fourth button from the left near Tools.
When you upload JOSM will give you a warning, cancel the upload. On the right hand side normally at the bottom you'll see a Validation Results box, click on the + by the warning. You'll see untagged ways. Highlight the untagged ways and select them.
In tags Add landuse=residential to them all.
Click the upload button once more, again you'll get a warning this time saying landuse residential has unclosed ways, select these as a group.
In tags Edit and change the tag to highway=unclassified.
Now upload. You may need your OSM userid and password at this point.
You'll notice that JOSM already has the source of the image filled in and the HOT tile etc.
Now go back and look for highway=tracks. Again don't tag until JOSM warns you on uploading then tag them all at once.
For rectangle buildings press b for the building plug-in, now find the longest side and mouse click one corner, follow the edge to the next corner then click again, now drag the mouse to the other side. Click once more and the building is done and correctly tagged for HOT.
There is a lot more to JOSM but this guide's objective is to get you going productively quickly.
Cheerio John
Thank you for testing it.
The grab handle needs to be added, press and hold the right mouse button then move the mouse.
From the mapper's point of view the building tool is very nice as you say, marking the settlements then tagging them all once is much faster so you feel as if you are accomplishing more.
From the maps point of view we get less wasted effort and we get a cleaner map. I've changed hundreds if not thousands of area=yes to building=yes tags, JOSM will tell you if two highways are almost touching, this is important for routing. It will spot duplicate buildings, and I've seen a number of these, sometimes both have the same author on them.
Perhaps someone could add/incorporate this idiot guide to the learn OSM page? It would need to be extended to include the grab handle.
Thanks
Cheerio John