add a 'minimal controls' option

[mfrasca]

I'm in a scarcely mapped area, which at the same time is a top-10 tourist destination for Panama according to Lonely Planet. what surprises me is that the area had only one single GPS track, by some German guy, in 2009. then nothing until I recorded a couple of walks, January 2020.

I have the impression that the current procedure for uploading a trace to OSM is quite beyond the level of attention of the current Android casual user. you need to save the trace, then long-press on it, and choose an option from a pop-up menu. then you're asked for a description (which you have to type), tags, and to choose a privacy option (whatever it may mean, thinks the casual user). you click on upload and there you are, you need to register. I myself gave up a couple of times, before I finally decided I would sit down at a desk and do all the steps.

what I envision is a 'minimal controls' osmtracker mode. when opened for the first time, the program would ask the user: are you a casual user just willing to contribute traces? mind you, this is the moment when the user has internet connection, and some willingness to pay attention.

the casual user would then just need to let osmtracker create an account, and choose a password, all automatic by the program. the user only confirms if they agree with the randomly chosen name, choose a default high privacy mode, and that's about it.

my idea is: one arrives at an airport, or a bus terminal, and notices a poster advertising a 'minimal controls' osm tracker, with a QR code to download it. installation is followed by opening it, and doing the initial configuration. then for each trace the process would be automatic: you start recording, all you see is the map and the trace (possibly the height on sea level), no further action required nor suggested, you stop recording and at that moment the program asks "do you want to upload this to OSM?" (recall: you have already created your account and linked to it). when uploading, you are shown icons of how you moved around while recording the trace. by car? on foot? boat? bus? possibly the kind of terrain, like road, path, hiking. but not too many, and not a cascade of them, the focus should be to make sure the user will upload the trace.

I hope this would help OSM receive more traces.

[jidanni]

My day to day experience: The only thing I do is walk on trails, and the only button I push is "leave a text note". Upon which I talk to the Android voice-to-text input, and then correct the spelling mistakes. And hit Save.

Any more thinking required when in the field is too much.

OK, then when I get to a safe spot, I save to GPX, and upload to Openstreetmap.

Any more tampering and I risk losing the track, and all my hiking was for nothing.

I am glad that the app doesn't ask me if I want to do some action now, etc. Because if I am in the field being chased by bees, I just want to save the track now and not think about uploading yet.

I just say to the voice input, "pavement starts here" rather than looking for icons, in bright sunlight, with bad weather moving in. Also I leave text notes, rather than .wav or .jpgs, as I want to keep the GPXs slim and trim.

[caal-zz]

Hi! I cannot understand how to upload to openstreetmap audio rec file and other media files (ex. photo)? It seems the app uploads just the text note.

Carlo

[mnalis]

@caal-zz The Openstreetmap.org project does not allow to upload photo and audio. It has no use for them. You're supposed to use such audio and photo notes to help yourself to update the map later when you get home (in order not to forget what you've seen is missing on them map, and where you've seen it), using some OSM editor like iD (or more complex/advanced JOSM). Finding out how to edit the OSM map does have some learning curve, though.