more understandable Properties/Membership window

[A_Pirard]

After reading the answer to #8084 and noticing my misunderstandings (after having used JOSM for a long time), my conclusion is that the Properties/Membership window would be much better understood if

• the "Side buttons" were "always hidden" (by default or unmissable recommendation)

that's because you then act on what you click and not on what you guess from 2 windows
(and the extending-while-you-browse buttons hiding what-you-browse is a nuisance anyway)

• selecting a tag-less object always displayed the "Key - Value" heading alone, as a clear sign of the selection and as a prompt for the following

this is especially important when what you see is (presently) just a relation instead of the object itself

• the Key - Value heading were what to click to modify the object

e.g. making it clear that + (add) will add a tag and has nothing to do with the relation

• and the "Member of" heading ... to act on the relations globally (e. g. select all)

Thanks!!!

[A_Pirard]

Ticket #8084 has been marked as a duplicate of this ticket.

[stoecker]

First point can be reached as a setting somehow. Don't know exactly if there was a setting in configuration or you reach it by clicking the eye icon (I believe it was the eye icon, but I never use this option).

I see no sense in the other three suggestions..

[A_Pirard]

I find strange that you close a ticket if you don't know. This topic needs more than 5 min of thinking.

The problem, as shown in #8084 -- which you probably did not read -- is that, when you have 2 sub windows -- Properties and Membership (Relations) both full of objects -- it is very unclear on what act Add, Edit, Delete and others (yes, we all know that you know, and I could say that I know too, but I report this unselfishly for other people who do not use JOSM because, as they told me, they do not understand).

It is especially hard to understand that Add acts on the Properties Windows when there is no Property window, just a Membership window, and that Edit (next to Add) is acting on the other window (the case I describe in #8084) except when the Property windows is present etc...
My proposition is that JOSM respect the fundamental principle that a mouse or keyboard action applies on the objects that are clearly selected (and not, as I've explained on something that is invisible).
And the best way for a novice is to right-click on the object and use a menu that applies to that object rather than one which applies to many objects depending on...

As for what you don't know, you click in the title bar and then on Side button -> Always Hidden, neither the eye nor configuration can do that.
It's not exactly easily usable right now, but my suggestion is to make JOSM as easily understandable as another program.

[stoecker]

Replying to A_Pirard:

I find strange that you close a ticket if you don't know. This topic needs more than 5 min of thinking.

Do you expect me to know all features of JOSM en detail? Rethink.

I now did research you could have done yourself:

• Look&Feel - > Dynamic buttons in side menus allows to toogle that feature.
• Right click in title line of menu allow to toggle state, including "always off".

The problem, as shown in #8084 -- which you probably did not read -- is that, when you have 2 sub windows -- Properties and Membership (Relations) both full of objects -- it is very unclear on what act Add, Edit, Delete and others (yes, we all know that you know, and I could say that I know too, but I report this unselfishly for other people who do not use JOSM because, as they told me, they do not understand).

When you do mouseover, then you are exactly told what Add does. Also a single click to the button does no harm and tells you what it does.

A novice user should not use that box at all, but rather use the presets.

P.S. The English text in #8084 is pretty much non-understandable and I don't speak french.

It is especially hard to understand that Add acts on the Properties Windows when there is no Property window, just a Membership window, and that Edit (next to Add) is acting on the other window (the case I describe in #8084) except when the Property windows is present etc...

There is no property window and no membership window. There are only two tables in one window and headers for empty tables are not displayed to save space. Main issue with side menus is that we have not enough space.

My proposition is that JOSM respect the fundamental principle that a mouse or keyboard action applies on the objects that are clearly selected (and not, as I've explained on something that is invisible).
And the best way for a novice is to right-click on the object and use a menu that applies to that object rather than one which applies to many objects depending on...

We had enough discussions on that dynamic buttons and we all agree that it is suboptimal. Nevertheless we have no better solution yet.

As for what you don't know, you click in the title bar and then on Side button -> Always Hidden, neither the eye nor configuration can do that.
It's not exactly easily usable right now, but my suggestion is to make JOSM as easily understandable as another program.

I don't know what program you refer to, but I know no program as complex as josm, which is much easier to understand.

I still see no improvement in your suggestions. Go some years back and you'll see, that what you suggest actually was previous way of work and has been replaced by current form. There is no reason to go back to old state only because one person does not like new state. There are enough configuration options for individuals.

While it is fine that you think about improving JOSM's UI, please don't expect us to accept your suggestions. Probably 90% of what you can suggest will be rejected and you wont get such lengthy statements as this one for all of them, but simply a WONTFIX as I did before. A lot of people already spent a lot of time thinking about the UI. It surely can be improved, but most decisions we did in the past have pretty good reasons.

[A_Pirard]

Fixed by #9864