Potlatch: what is the status with Flash / Adobe Air?

Jan_Olieslagers1 · 2020-09-02T17:09:00.000Z

@Richard: as time allows, I’d much like to be available as a beta- or even alpha-tester.

Richard · 2020-09-03T12:14:29.000Z

No problem. So far I have a proof-of-concept AIR version launching, but much still to do! I’ll keep this thread updated with progress.

Pfad-Finder · 2020-10-11T17:41:43.000Z

Thanks to OSMF and you, Richard! I am looking forward to the new P3.

Geofalke · 2020-11-01T17:05:54.000Z

Firefox and Adobe Flash are more and more restrictive when starting Potlatch 2. It would not have been more than 400 000 nodes created by me without this smart map editor. So I hope very much the new standalone version will be ready before Flash will cease to work.

Geofalke · 2020-11-13T07:14:12.000Z

Richard:

Not finished yet but working on it. I agree that Chrome (and Safari too) are making it increasingly difficult.

Hello Richard, how are you? Still more than a month left, but I think many of us “Potlatch-fans” are urgently waiting for the new software.
Best wishes
Axel

Richard · 2020-11-13T14:37:50.000Z

There is a very very early Mac-only build here: https://www.systemed.net/potlatch/download

Still lots to do, but it works and you can edit with it! It supports the “Edit with Remote Control” option on osm.org, and uses OAuth to log into OSM and save your edit.

Once I’ve got a few more tweaks done I’ll be looking at builds for other platforms. Windows should be fairly easy but I don’t have a Windows machine, so will need to rent one first (probably from paperspace.com who I’ve used in the past). For Linux my current thinking is to recommend running the Windows version under Wine.

Jan_Olieslagers1 · 2020-11-15T18:14:59.000Z

@Richard, many thanks for your efforts. I regret stating that Wine is not an option for me as a Linux-only user. A Potlatch3 that cannot be used natively on the more common Linux platforms (CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu…) is next to useless, for me.

Richard · 2020-11-15T21:08:49.000Z

I’ve just updated https://www.systemed.net/potlatch/download/ with the latest version and with a cross-platform AIR file.

I think that it should be possible to run Potlatch natively on Linux. The last version of Adobe AIR to be released for Linux was 2.6 and Potlatch should function without any post-2.6 features.

It doesn’t appear to be simple to install AIR on Linux, however. I have just provided a bunch of links at https://www.systemed.net/potlatch/download/ - I hope that at least one of them will work. It would be great if any Linux users could try these and report back, so that we can recommend a method for people to use! Unfortunately I’m not experienced enough with desktop Linux to be able to provide failsafe instructions.

BikePC · 2020-11-16T22:03:44.000Z

@Richard, many thanks so far for Potlatch3
Running Windows 10 Home 64-bit version 20H2 I’ve installed Adobe Air and your 2020-11-15 version of Potlatch3 with the downloaded Potlatch3.air file. Installation (administrator privileges requireded) was without issues. The only pop-up during installation was about “publisher unknown”, but you can continue the install process.
Running Potlatch3 is as expected and ‘funny’ to see it running in it’s own standalone desktop window. Up to now I have played around a littlebit and have some questions / remarks.

The rendering of dashed lines (ways) was very irregular in first instance. Some examination showed that Potlatch was running on the Integrated Intel Graphics engine. After changing settings to use the Nvidia Geforce 940M instead, the rendering was ok and identical to Potlatch 2. I suppose this is not a Potlatch issue, but rather Adobe Air?
At start Potlatch3 shows a very big area covering nearly the whole globe. If you use the “+” plus button to zoom in to your area of interest, this firstly takes quite some time and secondly ends with a warning message that you are downloading too much data, however you can continue after that. Question: is there a way to start Potlatch3 with a URL pointing to your area of interest on OSM - for example https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=52.0723&mlon=4.4226#map=15/52.0723/4.4226 ? I know that in the Potlatch3 window there is a search button in the upper left, but there you can only search on ‘place name’ - not on an URL.
Related to this issue: How can you integrate Potlatch3 in the OSM environment @ openstraatmap.org - is this called ‘Remote Control’? The Edit list on osm.org shows ‘Edit with Potlatch 2 (in-browser editor)’, ‘Edit with iD (in-browser editor)’ and ‘Edit with Remote Control (JOSM or Merkaartor)’. Is Potlatch3 enabled for Remote Control? If yes, how to use it? When I have both osm.org and Potlatch3 open, the loaded area in Potlatch3 does not change when I shift the mapview area on osm.org. Also when I first go to my area of interest on osm.org and then press ‘Edit’ with the ‘Remote Control’ option, sometimes an error message appears that JOSM or Merkaartor cannot be found, and sometimes nothing happens and also the content in the Potlatch3 window is not being changed. Should this work as described, or is this all latency and data need more time to get downloaded?
I’m using the Firefox browser, latest version 82.0.3.

PS. Is this the right place to discuss Potlatch3 issues? Thanks again for all your work on Potlatch3!

On the github page ( https://github.com/systemed/potlatch2/issues ) you refer to on the download page, there is no entry for potlatch3?

EDIT / UPDATE 2020-11-17:
Tried again and happy to report that ‘Remote Control’ does work. First go to osm.org and login, then start Potlatch3. Select the area of interest on osm.org and click Edit / Edit with Remote Control (in the settings on osm.org you can make this the default), then wait some seconds (may vary) for map data and imagery to settle. Potlatch3 is ready for editing now.
My conclusion now is that slow data download raised my questions at first use of Potlatch3. Happy to be here with Potlatch3 without needing the Adobe Flashplayer anymore

Richard · 2020-11-17T14:31:37.000Z

Brilliant - really glad it’s working for you!

This is as good a place as any to discuss P3, but you can create a new issue on the P2 Github issue tracker too.

The GPU issue is interesting. I’ve just uploaded a second build that uses CPU rendering (unfortunately AIR doesn’t allow you to switch between them at runtime).

You can now (as of today’s build) paste an osm.org URL into the search box, and it will recognise the lat/lon and jump straight there. This also works for URLs from a few other sites, e.g. waymarkedtrails.org.

BikePC · 2020-11-17T15:51:21.000Z

Both new 2020-11-17 versions are running fine. The non-CPU version running on the Nvidia GPU feels to rum somewhat smoother, but this is only a first impression.
The option to be able to paste an osm.org (and more) URL into the search box is a very good enhancement. It enables directly going to the spot in editing mode when someone wants to check the details of somebody’s URL posted in this forum or alike. Good work!

Geofalke · 2020-11-19T21:38:43.000Z

Just did my first edit with Potlatch3: https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/94461859#map=13/47.0361/6.2093
It works smoothely with very much similarity to the browser version.
Some wishes:

A button to show the current map section as it appears on OpenStreetMap
Resume work at the last edited map section
auto complete “tracktype” just like “bu” becomes “building”
when a way that is part of a relation is marked: show way-tags first, then let the relations be chosen / edited.
Looking forward to the next level!

BikePC · 2020-11-20T09:08:47.000Z

Geofalke:

…

A button to show the current map section as it appears on OpenStreetMap
…

There is… When you are logged in on osm.org and have P3 started, and have view on a map area on osm.org, say zoomed in to level 17, and then select “Edit with Remote Control” then P3 loads the corresponding map area, ready to edit.
That button you ask for is the “Edit” button. That’s what you mean?

Another more indirect option is to use the ‘Share’ button on osm.org, copy the url to the clipboard and paste the url in the ‘search’ window in P3 (upper left).

Russ_McD · 2020-11-20T10:08:31.000Z

Best Christmas present yet … Thanks Richard.

I’m running Windows 7 … Tried it out this morning, and surprised at how close to P2 it is. I did get issues with poor line quality, especially noticeable on tracks & Footpath (where dashed/dotted). Changing to the AIR CPU version didn’t help, but when I ran the program in Windows 7 compatibility mode, it was fine.

One last tip - I appreciate than when you open P3, the world map needs a lot of zooming in before you can edit … the simple answer is to create a bookmark of where you recently edit the most, and at the zoom level you wish … Next time you open P3, one click on the bookmark tab, and that takes you right to where you need to be.
You also have a choice of several bookmarks if you wish.

When the dust has settled, I’m sure Richard will entertain requests to fill in the extra “autocompletes” in advanced mode … I have a some to save my fingers, such as “byway_open_to_all_traffic”, and “level_crossing”, to name but a few

Richard · 2020-11-20T14:17:57.000Z

Really glad to hear it’s working well for people! The version uploaded yesterday (Thursday 19th) has a few rendering optimisations, so it’s worth getting if you downloaded an earlier version this week.

Ultimately I’m intending to write some code for P3 to import presets/autocomplete from one of the other editors (iD/JOSM/Vespucci) as it seems daft to maintain several sets of the same thing.

westnordost · 2020-11-26T23:11:23.000Z

to import presets/autocomplete from one of the other editors (iD/JOSM/Vespucci)

The iD editor presets (feature names + tagging and preset fields for features) moved to here now: https://github.com/openstreetmap/id-tagging-schema/

I’m using it in Streetcomplete too, as source data for a dictionary of OSM tags ↔ localized name/terms. If this is what you are looking for (so, without presets that define which fields can/should be filled in for which feature), you may want to have a look at https://github.com/westnordost/osmfeatures , not sure how difficult it would be to port this to AS3.
I am refactoring the latter to use various indexes, so it is become more complex and more code, but on the other hand very fast.

SimonPoole · 2020-11-27T11:52:02.000Z

I’ve been extracting the synonym information from iD since ages, see https://github.com/MarcusWolschon/osmeditor4android/tree/master/src/main/assets/synonyms and https://github.com/MarcusWolschon/osmeditor4android/blob/master/src/main/assets/synonyms/synonyms.de Tool for this https://github.com/simonpoole/preset-utils (Synonyms). Directly using the transifex translation files could be simpler though.

For simply extracting possible key/tag values: as a tendency I would use JOSM/Vespucci format, as there are only a handful of different “field” types (fixed key-value, text, check, combo & multiselect) that need to be parsed instead of iD’s baroque non-generic multitude of fields (I’ve written parsers for both), though you would need to handle JOSM “chunks” (that are reusable preset fragments) as a minor complication.

Geofalke · 2020-11-28T16:43:56.000Z

I already got used to Potlatch 3, a full month before Potlatch 2 will become history.

Still some wishes are left for autocomplete when a way is marked:
natural tree_row
natural scrub
tracktype grade

How about a list, that the user can work out for himself?

In the History of an element the user names of the listed edits are linked to the user profile - but the click on the name/link doesn’t work in P3.

Pfad-Finder · 2020-11-30T21:36:26.000Z

Thank you Richard for your work and for OSMF granting the money. P3 seems so far to work fine with me. Same Look & Feel, very good.

Geofalke:

Still some wishes are left for autocomplete when a way is marked:
(…)
natural scrub
tracktype grade

I could subscribe these. Pleeeaaase Richard…

Richard · 2020-12-07T17:55:38.000Z

I’ve just uploaded a Windows version that will work without having to install AIR first. It seems to work fine (though you do have to click through the warning about an unidentified developer) - feel free to try if you’re on Windows!