Overpass turbo "Help" is not particularly helpful

[SomeoneElseOSM]

There are a few related issues here:

The first is that "Help" refuses to open in a browser tab - it insists on creating its own in-browser window that doesn't actually fit in the height of the browser window on my PC.

There are also issues with content. For example, I'd logically expect the "Overpass Queries" section to contain information about writing overpass queries. Unfortunately it doesn't - there are two links in that section, both to "http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_turbo/MapCSS". The actual query help ("http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_API/Language_Guide") is under "Introduction".

That page tries to document two separate languages (the easier-to-understand XML one and the "other" one) on one page and doesn't really work. It seems to miss some key concepts (like wildcards - it mentions how to replace a single character but no more than that).

Maybe there's some documentation that's not linked from the "help" screens that's more useful?

[sanderd17]

What browser are you using? And what size? The help creates a nice floating window over here (Firefox on Linux).

Better help for the Overpass QL is available here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_API/Overpass_QL

I don't know where to find help for the XML language, as I never write queries in XML (I find it too hard to look for mistakes in XML).

[SomeoneElseOSM]

For info, the browser is Seamonkey on Windows 7. A screenshot of a browser window (of the size I normally use) edited to remove the browser chrome has 659px vertically on it. The problem with the "nice floating window" is that I can't move it out of the way - I can't move it away so that it doesn't obscure the window that I'm trying to use, or open it in another tab so that I can easily go back and forth.

[mmd-osm]

Agree on the documentation part. If you can't figure something out, simply ask a question on help.openstreetmap.org and tag it with overpass. I'm sure you'll get some help...

Regarding the "nice floating window": you could resize window by dragging the frame and then move it out of the way. Here's how that looks like on my simulated 637x588px screen:

[tyrasd]

The help dialog is meant to be a very quick explanation of what overpass turbo is and what it can do. I try to put in as many links to actual documentation as possible. Unfortunately, there is not much of it available (and even less is beginner-friendly stuff). I think we all agree that there is a need for more and better introductory material for Overpass API and turbo…

Is there anything actionable left to do in this ticket (after the small adjustments I did in d15a1f9)?

[SomeoneElseOSM]

Thanks - https://github.com/tyrasd/overpass-turbo/commit/d15a1f90b513b78996d880163523c9d2a30a3b7e is a definite improvement.