OpenStreetMap
New updates to "Latest Changes"
Posted by rene78 on 5 July 2022 in English. Last updated on 10 January 2023.“Latest changes” (https://rene78.github.io/latest-changes/) got a few improvements:
Tag comparison table
A table opens when clicking on any element. Updated key-value-pairs are highlighted in different colors (Green: Newly created, Yellow: Modified or Red: deleted). (similar to achavi).
Download button
Button to download changesets instead of automatic download on pan and zoom. The long waiting times and frequent timeouts when querying overpass led to a bad experience. With a button it is much better in my opinion.
Vandalism Checker
Simple sanity checker for all the downloaded changesets. It adds up all elements and tags which have been added or deleted in the changeset. If the sum is below a certain treshold (currently -3) then a traffic light changes to red to alert the users of latest-changes about this changeset. Ideas on how to make this checker more powerful are welcome.
Examples
- A user adds one new supermarket and deletes two roads: The sum would be -1. Vandalism checker stays green.
- A user adds three key-value-pairs to a restaurant but deletes seven of a library. The sum would be -4. Vandalism checker turns red.
Small changes
A few other minor changes regarding the UI/UX. Check the GitHub pull request if you are interested
How to use
In a previous blog post I explained what this tool is about and how to use it. Please allow me to repost it here:
The purpose is to check recent OSM changes within a certain cartographic boundary, for example your home town. It is very simple and powerful:
- Open the Latest-Changes web app.
- Zoom to the area of interest
- Check and validate the changesets of the last 7 days (1 day, 3 days, 1 month).
- Bookmark the URL to regularly come back and monitor your area of interest.
Notes
The link on top leads to my version of the app. The original one can be found under https://tyrasd.github.io/latest-changes/
Discussion
Comment from Xvtn on 14 July 2022 at 17:59
This is an awesome tool! Great work! If only the default OSM changeset view showed individual features like this rather than just a bounding box and a huge list of meaningless IDs.
Comment from rene78 on 16 July 2022 at 14:42
Thanks 👍!
Comment from Interactiondesigner on 18 July 2022 at 20:53
Hi there – this is a very nice tool you made, handy to use and quite useful. I might have a little suggestion to you, which I would very much appreciate, if this would be possible to add: when you click on one of the changesets zoomglasses, the user gets zoomed to this changeset. Now it would be nice to have a back button or something similar, which brings you back to the previous overview chosen by the user. The back button of the browser doesn’t work in my case (I use the latest Firefox). Thanks in advance.
Comment from rene78 on 19 July 2022 at 12:59
Hi Interactiondesigner, gonna try to implement the use of the browser back button to go to the previous view once I have a bit of time. Good idea by the way! This recently crossed my mind as well.
Comment from rene78 on 3 August 2022 at 21:20
Back button functionality has been implemented.
Comment from Interactiondesigner on 4 August 2022 at 20:25
Hi Rene – thank you very much! This is a very nice feature and works pretty well for me ;-)