Welcome to my fifth OpenStreetMap NextGen development diary.
This week has been mostly focused on GPS Traces 🛰.

🔖 You can read my other development diaries here:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/NorthCrab/diary/

🐙 This project is open-source and publicly available:
https://github.com/Zaczero/openstreetmap-ng

GPS Traces Demo

It’s best to experience the refreshed traces in a video form, so I prepared a short demo (no audio):
⏯️ https://files.monicz.dev/osm/traces-demo.mp4

For comparison, here’s how the same trace looks on the current website:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/bielebog/traces/11326871

You will quickly notice the super-fast upload speed and the new trace animations. If there’s something wrong with the file you attached, you will receive instant feedback on the upload page. One new feature is possibility to edit trace name. Previously, this feature has been hidden behind API 0.6.

One more planned feature is rendering the map behind the trace animation. Now that the system works on individual coordinates, it will be fairly easy to implement. Traces without a human-understandable point of reference are not as useful as they could be.

Unified Traces URLs

Let’s start with discussing the current URL routes.

• If you want to access a way, you visit /way/<ID>
• If you want to access a note, you visit /note/<ID>
• If you want to access a trace, you visit /user/<USER>/traces/<ID>

Which is not consistent. OpenStreetMap-NG unifies this experience by introducing a new URL route: /trace/<ID>. All existing URLs remain backwards compatible and are automatically redirected.

Short-Term Development Plan

There’s just a few things left before reaching the core feature parity with the existing website. Those are the things I want to finish before inviting new contributors ツ.

• Elements sidebar (50% work in progress)
• User Diaries
• User Profiles
• Applications (OAuth) settings

Contributor Benefits

Last week I hinted towards the announcement of a contributor benefit. Today, I will talk shortly on 1 of 2 currently planned ideas, that will help the project grow and stay strong.

Firstly, who are the “contributors”? Those are the people who help the OpenStreetMap-NG project. For example: by testing the website, donating, contributing code, helping with localization, graphics and interface design, etc.. The scope is broadly defined, as people can contribute in many different ways!

Contributors joining before the project is officially accepted as the main OpenStreetMap website, will be able to become a member of the NextGen Founders invite-only community and receive a small badge on their user profiles. This feature is a part of the original announcement (under the name “Community Profiles”).

This is a time-limited benefit, that provides a unique thank-you to all people that help (and will help) making this project a reality. The 2nd benefit will be announced in some time in the future.

Project Sponsors 🏅

Here’s my weekly appreciation to the current project patrons. Thank you for believing and helping me do what I love :-)

Currently, the project is sponsored by 11 people!
Five private and three public donors on Liberapay, and three public on GitHub Sponsors.

• ~1847430, gileri, 快乐的老鼠宝宝/LaoshuBaby, mutipg, RedAuburn, ~1819511

If you can, please consider supporting the NG development:

Disclaimer

This project is not affiliated with the OpenStreetMap Foundation.