OpenStreetMap NextGen Development Diary #13

Posted by NorthCrab on 1 July 2024 in English.

Welcome to the thirteenth OpenStreetMap NextGen development diary.

🔖 You can read other development diaries here:
osm.org/user/NorthCrab/diary/

⭐ This project is open-source — join us today!
https://github.com/Zaczero/openstreetmap-ng

🛈 This initiative is not affiliated with the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

In case you missed it…

Last week, we showcased Search 2.0: a comprehensive overhaul of the search functionality. For the first time, OSM search is now simple and intuitive to use. It’s a must-see (there’s a video too)!

Default Editor Switching

This week, OpenStreetMap-NG introduced a convenient way to change your default editor. By exposing this functionality, previously hidden in settings, we prevent editor lock-in and allow users to easily experiment with other editors. A small icon now indicates which editor is currently set as default.

Faster and Slimmer GPX Traces

We completed a major overhaul of the GPX trace database design. Here are the results:

Storing traces is now much more efficient, with an 80% reduction in data size. What previously required 1TB of storage now only needs less than 200GB.
Uploading and downloading traces is noticeably faster.
There is no performance impact on querying individual tracepoints.

While further storage reduction is possible, it would slightly degrade the performance of querying individual tracepoints. Given the substantial 80% reduction already achieved, we decided not to pursue further optimization at this time.

Refreshed Data Alerts UI

We recently migrated and refreshed the map data alerts. Below are side-by-side comparisons with brief commentary.

When loading a large amount of data, users are now presented with a much simpler message and a clear decision: show the data or hide it? The previous message included unnecessary details and a small grammatical mistake (“Are sure you”). The (X) button was also unintuitive, making its function unclear.

When deciding to load even more data, the server may silently abort the request. Previously, users were left without any indication of what was happening. With OpenStreetMap-NG, users now see a new alert with instructions on what to do next.

New OpenStreetMap-NG Logo

Let’s wrap up this week’s highlights with something visually pleasing. We now have a new logo, which will be used for the project’s and soon the organization’s branding.

And here’s how it looks in the project’s README:

Discussion

Comment from CycleStreets on 7 July 2024 at 14:50

The change to the data alert dialog is a regression. The original design is preferable and makes much more sense in usability terms.

A single button, essentially implement “go ahead” is correct, because it provides a single option to change state from the default, i.e. data not showing. The new design is ambiguous, because one of the options actually does nothing - it retains the current state; its actual effect is to dismiss the dialog. It is also worse in usability terms because there is now much more to read, where as a single action “Load data” is a very clear “do something”.

That is why the current design is correct: there are essentially two options: change state (“Load data”) or dismiss the dialog (X button). I would recommend you revert this.

However, I would agree that moving to a floating dialog rather than misusing the left panel system is a sensible change. But it should be a single button with X.

Martin

Comment from NorthCrab on 8 July 2024 at 13:40

The problem I am trying to tackle with the new design is that pressing (X) causes the alert to keep coming back up again as soon as you move the map slightly, which is annoying if you don’t know what’s happening. I want to provide an easy way to completely turn off the data layer for users who may have accidentally turned it on or no longer need it. Binding this new behavior to (X) would be confusing because it’s not just a simple dismissal. If you want to simply dismiss the alert, zoom in on the map or change the view.

The original alert had only 2 outcomes: dismiss alert and show data. The new alert has 3 outcomes: hide data, show data, and dismiss alert. By providing the explicit hide data action, we prioritize the experience of new users while retaining the same set of functionalities for advanced users.

At least in theory. Now that I have explained this change in more detail, I am looking forward to your opinion on this!

As a bonus, ideally we would this kind of alert not to exist at all (given that it’s just a technical limitation of the app). After numerous optimizations we have already increased the rendering threshold from 2000 to 8000 and could probably go higher than this. Rendering lots of elements is super fast in OSM-NG compared to the current implementation.

Comment from sus242424 on 8 July 2024 at 22:34

Your ideas are really cool and would make the Website of Openstreetmap far better. But how are they related to official Openstreetmap? Will the main website be improved with your tweaks?

Comment from NorthCrab on 8 July 2024 at 22:40

@sus242424 Currently it’s just a community project but we are working hard on making this a reality! There’s still some work needed to achieve the feature parity with the existing website. Just then we’ll be able to discuss it seriously 😉.

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