Messages

Point 13
I have also noticed that LoMaps draws the coastline differently, sometimes pruning parts of the land off. Perhaps LoMap coastline is using some method similar to residential landuse?

The result seems less accurate.

See attached example, bottom is OSM, left is OAM, right is LoMap.

Point 12
Since my theme for v4 is currently targeting OAM I am naturally comparing how OAM abd LoMap v4 maps differ.

I've just remembered that landuse for residential areas is very different in Lomaps, which provides "lm_landuse". This tag uses its own method to establish residential areas, but this results in rather approximate areas, see attached which compares building up residential area using various landuse values (RED) in OAM vs using lm_landuse in LoMap (BLUE).

Can we have the missing landuse=residential tag value?

Point 11
I'm missing a lot of tidal mud areas around some of the British coastline, see attached comparison of OAM vs LoMap v4.

OAM have mapped natural=mud + tidal=yes to be treated the same as wetland=tidalflat.

Can something be done to include mud+tidal in LoMap v4 maps? E.g. treat as wetland=tidalflat, or include natural=mud + tidal=yes...

@karlchick
Point 4
- the LoMaps V3 was generated as 512x512 tiles and zoom or area is really "shifted" in comparison of 256x256 V4 tiles. There were minor changes in `zoom-appear` attribute for some elements. But it was mainly for zoom-levels 9 - 10 (I think). Do you have some specific requests to change the zoom-appear for certain elements?

Point 7, re:Point 4
In OAM most of the natural land features (that can cover large areas) appear from zoom level 12, but in LoMap v4 these are appearing at later zoom levels:

From Z13: beach, cliff, desert, fell, heath, marsh, scree, shingle, valley

From Z14: barerock, earthbank, grassland, sand, rock, wetland

Can these appear from Z12? In fact OAM has sand appear from Z10.

At the moment the map goes very bare when zooming out from Z13/Z14 compared to OAM, see attached.



...and few more requests...

Point 8
Can we include "surface" tag for "highway" and "natural" elements?
I think only tracktype is included, but often only "surface" is set in osm. Being able to differentiate sealed surfaces is very useful to many map users (e.g. using pushchairs, cycles, wheelchairs).


Point 9
Is it possible to include 10m contours? And make contours appear earlier too? E.g. major from Z9, medium from Z10,  minor from Z12.  See attached for comparison of LoMap v4 with OAM at Z12.


Point 10
Can we have "peak_dist" available, this allows the theme to bring peaks into view in sensible order and avoid cluttered view, also to have text size varying based on peaks significance, see attached example, note how LoMap v4 map has all peaks same size font. Note that peak_dist values need to override the default peak appear zoom levels to introduce peaks gradually from Z9 to Z12, see OAM tagmapping file as an example.

@karlchick
please see the latest changes at https://github.com/mapsforge/mapsforge/blob/master/docs/Changelog.md

Looks like we're getting the curved contours back, yay!

Very much appreciate the improvements you are all making to mapsforge.

Sounds like the main issue is now fixed... big thanks!

Also sounds like there are some new tags available to theme creators to control text:
- 'text-wrap-width'
- 'text-align'

Are these available now? What is the syntax? I couldn't find them on the doc page.

What happens if I use these in my theme, and then a user with an older version of LocusMap tries to use the latest theme? will it cause a error loading the theme?

Since the new releases of Locus Map 4.15.1 and Locus Classic 3.66.1, both editions are now text wrapping "long" names.

For really long names this is good, but the algorithm is going g a poor job of wrapping also not very long names. Also the wrapping seems to be left justified, and the placement of symbols "below" are not to the bottom/right.

Seems to be only v4 maps affected.

In the past this would occur rare and then stop, e.g. if change maps or restart. But, I've tried restarting and it seems be permanent now.

Attached is an example.

Worst is the Nottingham Hill. Having a single character word wrapped also looks bad.

Can the text wrapping be made a setting? Or improved to of wrap on non-alpha chars?

@voldapet

Thank you for raising the PR.

Regarding: Point 5

John's JohnThorn maps are raster maps, so there is no theming possible within the LocusMap app...

the OAM maps now include (for UK maps) an additional tag:

<!-- OS_OpenData -->
<osm-tag key='os_open_data' value='crags' zoom-appear='13' />

which renders the OS crag data, so from a theme point of view it is very simple to include... but of course there (presumably) was some considerable scripting effort for the map generation to merge in the OS open data.

Attached is an example of using OAM maps before and after OS crags were included.

Some initial thoughts from me:

Point 1:

I see bicycle=designated is added.

Could we include the following?
   - bicycle=no|yes|designated|permissive
   - foot=no|yes|designated|permissive
   - horse=no|yes|designated|permissive


Point 2:

In the UK we have footpaths and bridleways that are legally protected and signed along their routes - these are known as Public Rights of Way (PROW).

OSM has inluded tagging for these ways (designation):

   https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:designation

and has the following guidance for usage:

   https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Access_provisions_in_the_United_Kingdom

Would it be possible to include this designation tag in LoMap maps?

For the UK, the following values would be useful: public_footpath, public_bridleway, restricted_byway, byway_open_to_all_traffic.
The following values are also used in Isle of Man: access_land, public_cycleway, green_lane.
The following values are also used in Scotland: core_path.

This would provide a massive improvement to be able to indicate footpaths that are of interest to hikers, cyclists and horse riders:
   - bridleways can often be part of a highway=track + designation=public_bridleway - these are currently not displayed in LocusMap but are quite common.
   - bridleways (in the UK at least) are also legally accessible for cyclists - some are sealed and useful to road-bikes but some not and need off-road bicycles.
   - many footpaths in OSM are foot=designated but only because there is a general (Cycle|Foot) signage used by the councils to indicate a shared space footway - these are publicly accessible paths, usually pavements, cyceways, side_walks, combined cycle lanes and footpaths - most are in/around towns. They are not PROW but if rendered as "footpaths" clutter the map with many "additional" paths, resulting in a "can't see the wood for the trees" situation for the walker...


Point 3:

Car parking amenities seem to be growing in OSM over the last year, to the point that the maps are starting to be cluttered with many additional parking=side_street.

Could you include the parking=* tag to help identify which car parking amenties are dedicated off-street parking from the many on-street packing, see:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:parking

This tag is also useful for being able to indicate multi-storey and underground car parks.

When combined with access tag, it allows to identify those car parks that are publicly accessible and likely destinations for people arriving somewhere to park.


Point 4:

I see that many of the appear-zoom levels have been tweaked, some appearing much later...

I noticed when we went from v3 to v4 for OAM that there is a difference in visual scaling between LoMap and v4 maps of the same zoom level.
e.g. zoom=16 in LoMap appears similar in scale to zoom=15 in v4 maps.
This has the effect (for the user) that symbols/ways seem appear much later in v4 maps. When you zoom out in v4 maps you seem to get less information compared to when you switch to LoMap.
...so I was a little surprised to see some appear-zoom levels being increased for some tags...


Point 5:

The OAM maps have recently added OS crag data available from  OS open data. I think Christian did some magic scripting behind the scenes to make this possible for OAM and it is a massive improvement for UK maps.
Is this something that might be considered for LoMap v4?


Point 6:
In OAM maps the map tagging separates out common tag values, e.g. foot=yes and bicycle=yes are transformed into foot=ft_yes and bicycle_bic_yes.
I'm wondering if this is something that is desirable for LoMap v4 maps?
I'm not 100% sure why this was done, but is does mean that you can OR together many tags and check for specific instances of common values like ft_yes or bic_yes.
Perhaps this is now resolved with the bugfix to the double tag issue mentioned earlier?

@menion, no hurry. It would be good if theme creators could access an early beta release of the tag mapping and an example/test map - so we have time to update our themes and provide the user base with working themes as soon as the new lomaps go live...

I'm using Samsung Galaxy A52 with Android 11 and system dark mode enabled. No additional dark mode apps installed, but I am using Chrome flag to force dark mode on websites...

I checked the system developer settings, force dark mode is not set.

With v3.64.1 I sometimes find the UI colours get inverted and menus have white text on white background. See screenshot.

I can 'fix' it by opening quick settings (opens in Black, white, see screenshot) and closing quick settings. After that the UI returns to normal white with black text, see screenshot.

I'm guessing this a bug, but also wondering if perhaps dark mode is being developed for classic but not yet released...

@Menion, any chance of a sneaky peak at the tagmapping file for v4 lomaps? Is it similar to v3?

Ok... I've got the v4/v5 theme into a state ready for release - just need to update the Legend PDFs.
The v3 theme I have not started work on, it will require a lot of rework...

I think I am going to do a release with just the v4/v5 theme updated and leave the v3 untouched for now - that way you can benefit from the latest theme updates on OAM maps right now.

i was wondering if I should split the theme into two separate themes, one for OAM and one for LoMap. But then I thought "Will LoMaps ever upgrade to v5 or higher maps?" @Menion, perhaps an inkling?

John, I think your hosting site is down, I get a bad gateway error when trying to access theme or legends.