Merge LayerListDialog.MergeAction and MergeLayerAction

[simon04]

See ticket:11891#comment:9

Merging layers is placed in the Edit menu as well as in the context menu of the layer list dialog.

[simon04]

Personally, I would vote for removing the merge operation from the Edit menu. Analogously, neither duplicating nor deleting layers is placed in the Edit menu.

[Don-vip]

I have no objection to remove the entry from Edit menu. Can we preserve the shortcut Ctrl-M?

[malenki]

Maybe also the "mark layer as active"-button could be removed from the layer window since this action is more obvious by the green hook already displayed in the window.¹
Then the "merge layers"-button could be re-applied.

¹ IMHO the workflow to just select a layer by clicking on the place where the green hook will be placed is more straightforward to selecting a layer, go down and press "make layer active".
(I never once used this button).

[mcpicoli]

Not sure if this is the correct place, and not wanting to open an unneeded new ticket, I ask (version is 8800):

"Where is the Merge Down button that used to be where the (useless - for me) "adjust gamma" button is now, in the "Layers" dialog?"
"How can the same result of the old button be achieved without it?"

I use JOSM to manage a large collection of GPX files (secondarily, to contribute data to OSM) and always used the "Merge Down" button to add a new GPS trace to a pre-existing collection (in which all of them share some key characteristic).

Tried using "Edit" -> "Merge Layer" (<ctrl>+<M>, <ctrl>+<shift>+<M>), to no avail, both with one or both GPX layers selected.

I hope JOSM is not going down the Microsoft/Apple way of removing "unneeded" features just to add some eye candy...

Going back to 8677 for now.

[malenki]

Replying to mcpicoli:

Not sure if this is the correct place, and not wanting to open an unneeded new ticket, I ask (version is 8800):

IMHO this would be worth another ticket.

"Where is the Merge Down button that used to be where the (useless - for me) "adjust gamma" button is now, in the "Layers" dialog?"

Obviously the Merge Layers button is gone. The "Adjust Gamme" you will learn to like when you have some quite bad imagery you need to tune. This feature was asked for since some years.

"How can the same result of the old button be achieved without it?"

I use JOSM to manage a large collection of GPX files (secondarily, to contribute data to OSM) and always used the "Merge Down" button to add a new GPS trace to a pre-existing collection (in which all of them share some key characteristic).

Tried using "Edit" -> "Merge Layer" (<ctrl>+<M>, <ctrl>+<shift>+<M>), to no avail, both with one or both GPX layers selected.

Since I never used "merge layers" for GPX files I did not realize that the merge button merged not only OSM layers but also GPX layers. It seems there were two different calls for merging layers, now maybe even three (context menu, ctrl-m, the one of the dropped merge-button).

I hope JOSM is not going down the Microsoft/Apple way of removing "unneeded" features just to add some eye candy...

LOL – JOSM and "eyecandy" in one breath.
Seriously: If your issue isn't picked up here you should open a new ticket – and skip useless ranting or accusations.

[richlv]

merging gpx layers often is the first thing in my mapping sessions - with 8800 that didn't work that well ;)

as that is indeed a separate issue from this low level task (even if it might eventually solve it), created a new ticket at #11925

[simon04]

In 8818/josm:

fix #11925, see #11897 - Re-enable merging of gpx, marker, geoimage layers

Regression of r8728.

[simon04]

In 8819/josm:

see #11897 - MergeLayerAction: merge active layer instead of edit layer

This allows merging of gpx/marker/geoimage layers using [CTRL]+[M].

[simon04]

Since "Merge layers" is also present in the "Edit" menu, I'd refrain from the original proposal (LayerListDialog.MergeAction and MergeLayerAction) and close this ticket.

[malenki]

Maybe I don't understand you correct but it seems to me that you want to keep both "Merge layers" actions different in behaviour (one merges only one layer, the other also several) and location (one in Edit –> Merge Layer and hotkey CTRL-M, the other only in the layers context menu).
Is this correct?

[simon04]

Yes. The main difference is that the merge operation from the Edit menu operates on the active layer. In contrary, in the layer list dialog you may select arbitrary layers (concerning activeness and number) to be merged.

[richlv]

normally operations in the edit menu operate on the selection still - wouldn't it be better for the menu entry to operate on the selected layers, too ?
at least personally i would expect for it to work that way and would never guess it would only affect the active layer...