Monthly updates sounds like fun. I will try it. I will report what has been done for the damn project each month. Along with reporting of what has been done, the main motivation is having fun and boosting my (not so good) writing skills. Therefore, I will not use Grammarly. I promise. So, excuse me. Or, rather excuse these reports. Thanks.
And yes, this form – the summary of the work done in one month – is still missing. Diaries cover one topic in (kind of greater) detail. Small notes and updates are being tooted. However, there is nothing except emails to keep me doing. (There should be something like: “Let’s change it! Woo hoo!”)
I know this is a little bit of PR, but it is not the main deal. Just believe me. The project is damn and I know it and that is important for my mental health, indeed.
Finally, if it is still not clear, the writing style is not serious, the message it is. (DISCLAIMER)
This is the April report, but (as this is the first one) we cannot resist to start with (my (the writer (of this April report)) favorite) achievement from the last year’s December. The issue reported by one of the (not the damn project) users has been fixed by changing four lines of code! Particularly, when you split a square, the splitted squares should have the same “state” the original square had, shouldn’t they? (This is not a late April fool.)
Please, note that the state of the new square after merging is still “to map”, because multiple squares with different states can be merged. We are discussing with AI if AI may help with this problem.
Anyway, back to April. We are skipping the update on the web clients, because it was posted on March, 31. Coincidence? We don’t think so. Maybe next time, but probably not.
In April, we have restructured and slightly rewritten our web page, the damn-project.org. The main improvement is that after links to the resources, there are three (!) columns with links to relevant tools for mappers, reviewers, and managers. The main motivation for this change was that different groups of users like mappers (and beginners especially), advanced mappers and reviewers, or area managers, prefer different tools and workflows. We wanted to direct them the right way.
We have been working really hard on the issue reported to the (not the damn) project. Ughm, we should be honest, so: not so hard, because we spent a day adding few lines of code (75 to be exact) to the JOSM damn plugin, to enable loading of multiple imagery and WMS sources, and we released new version of the JOSM damn plugin within a day the issue has been reported. Ughm, we should be honest, so: it was not a day, but a few hours after the work day. However, we also managed to update and release and deploy refactored web clients, particularly mapper and panel. But only the day after.
At the end of the month, we released new manager for mappers that are area(‘)(s(’)) managers. This is the part of the web clients refactoring/unifying the codebase. The biggest improvement is probably the possibility of sorting and filtering the list of the areas, but the goal is just refactoring and we honestly hope the experience of the managers do not decrease. (We do not expect it to increase.)
NOTE: If you hesitate what refactoring is, consider it as wash dishes – it’s boring, not moving you forward, but deadly important.
The last “something” is the May “something”, but we decided to announce it now already. We are considering re-licensing our core service, the damn server, from GNU Affero General Public License version 3 to The Open Software License 3.0 (OSL-3.0). Any opinion is appreciated! Our main motivation for this move is that we struggle to understand what “affero” means, we don’t speak latin, and we are always astonished when we try to understand the text of the AGPLv3. Please, note that we want a copyleft/reciprocal license for the damn server: If you change the database, the community should know.
That’s all for now, for April, for April now, and for April, now. You did a great job reading up to here! (Not, really. You probably have been procrastinating anyway, but that’s ok as it is not our business.) We will try to keep the following reports as short as this, but shorter. (There should be something like: “See you soon!” but we deliberately avoid it.)
Divide and map. Now. – the damn project – helps mappers by dividing a big area into smaller squares that people can map together.
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