Preferences > Advanced Preferences

The Advanced Peferences register shows all raw settings and allows to manipulate them. It is visible in expert mode only.

Most settings can easily and safely be modified via the other registers of this dialog box. Normally you should not need to use this register. Do so with caution. Invalid settings can cause errors and/or loss of data. Some setting changes need a restart to work. Unlike the other registers there is no warning about it. You may be instructed to edit here in order to access experimental features. See more about user settings in the Preferences Overwiew.

Search

Use the Search field to quickly access values and keys grouped by namespace.

List colors

1. Bold on yellow - value has changed at least once.
2. Bold on green - value was changed in this dialog.
3. Normal on green - value was reset to default in this dialog.

After a restart of JOSM all preference settings which are equal to their default values loose any list colors.

Buttons

Add

To add keys with simple values and with a XML structure.

Edit

To edit one marked key/value pair.

Reset

Sets all marked key/value pairs to their default value.

Read from file

Imports a JOSM custom configuration XML file. That can contain preferences modifications, commands to download some files or plugins and even JavaScript code.
After a file import is complete, you can see a detailed log and the changed preferences will be represented. You can reject these changes by pressing Cancel button. Caution: You can not undo reject file or plugin operations (download, delete, etc.), so be careful and do not open scripts from untrusted sources!

Export selected items

Generates a custom configuration XML file automatically. When reading this file, the key-value pairs will replace existing ones or be appended to them (in case of properties containing lists or maps). You can use it together with the Search field to find all preferences you need to backup or share.

More…

launches a popup menu with additional actions:

• Save ... profile - saves part of preferences related to shortcuts, colors, toolbar and imagery to a separate custom configuration XML files.
• Load profile - replace existing part of preferences with previously saved fragment (for example, reset all shortcuts to default and then load them from file). User should press OK to confirm changes.
• Reset preferences - reset all preferences by deleting the preferences.xml file. See Reset preferences also.

Explanation

The table below contains settings not accessible in the other tabs of the Preferences dialog (incomplete list):

Key	Values	Default	Description
$panel.buttonhiding	DYNAMIC, ALWAYS_HIDDEN or ALWAYS_SHOWN	DYNAMIC	See JOSM interface customization
$panel.minimized	true or false	false	See JOSM interface customization
$panel.docked	true or false	true	if a window is in the side pane or floating
$panel.lastHeight	integer	mixed	is used to store the last used height of a panel
$panel.preferredHeight	integer	mixed	can be used to overwrite the hard coded preferred height of a panel
$dialogname.geometry	x=*,y=*,width=*,height=*		Size and position of dialog boxes
$widget.always-visible	true or false	true	if TAB toggles this screen widget
draw.anglesnap.* and probably keys starting with color.draw.angle.snap	mixed	mixed	should be explained at Draw
edit.initial-move-threshold	pixels		See Select
edit.initial-move-delay	ms		See Select
message.movedManyElements	true or false	unset	Decision of "do not ask again" message after moving many objects.
draw.fullscreen	true or false	false	See Fullscreen view
zoom.undo.delay zoom.undo.max			See Zoom to previous
relation.editor.presets.visible?	true or false	true	If set to true, displays the list of presets matching the current tags in the relation editor.
properties.presets.visible	true or false	true	See Tags/Membership panel
properties.presets.top	true or false	true	See Tags/Membership panel
url.openstreetmap-wiki	https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/		See Tags/Membership panel
selectaction.cycles.multiple.matches	true or false	false	See Help/Action/Select#Selectsingle
osm.notes.daysClosed	-1, 0 or positive integer	7	See Notes panel
osm.notes.downloadLimit	from ... to 10000	1000	See Notes panel
latlon.dms.decimal-format latlon.dm.decimal-format statusbar.decimal-format			See StatusBar
statusbar.distance-threshold			See StatusBar
simplify-way.max-error	integer, meters	3	See Simplify Way
message.way.split.segment-selection-dialog	true or false	false	See Split Way
mappaint.wireframe.use-antialiasing	true or false	false	See Wireframe view
merge-nodes.mode	0 or 1 or 2	0	See Merge Nodes
upload.comment.max-age	integer	4*3600*1000	See Changeset
upload.show.review.request	true or false	true	displays the "I want someone to review my edits." check box in the upload dialog
upload.show.automatic.source	true or false	true	displays the "Automatically obtain source from current layers" check box in the upload dialog
mappaint.fillalpha, mappaint.showicons and couple others			See Styles
browser.unix		["xdg-open", "#DESKTOP#", "$BROWSER", "gnome-open", "kfmclient openURL", "firefox"]	sets another external browser than the default browser to open external links on unix os
browser.windows			sets another external browser than the default browser to open external links on windows os (use the browser executable)
osm-primitives.localize-name	true or false	false	See Look and Feel
osm-primitives.showcoor	true or false	false	See Look and Feel
osm-primitives.showid	true or false	false	See Look and Feel
osm-primitives.showid.new-primitives	true or false	false	Instead of id:0, displays the internal negative id for new objects beside the object in lists
osm-primitives.showversion	true or false	false	See Look and Feel
propertiesdialog.autoresizeTagsTable	true or false	false	Enables automatic column width of the tags table to fit content, see #14666
zoom.scale-follow-native-resolution-at-load	true or false	true	true means "Scale follows native resolution of layer" is enabled when layer is created
properties.autocomplete-keys	true or false	true	true means autocomplete keys by default in the add tag dialog
properties.autocomplete-values	true or false	true	true means autocomplete values by default in the add tag dialog
imagery.generic.popupmenu	true or false	true	false disables the imagery context menu in the mapview

$dialogname is short for a dialog name
$panel is short for changesetdialog, commandstack, conflict, filter, layerlist, mapstyle, notes/note_open, propertiesdialog, relationlist, selectionlist, userlist or validator
$widget is short for menu, sidetoolbar, statusbar or toolbar

Details

The list of preferences is build like this:

• Not all possible available keys are listed at the beginning.
• Whenever JOSM internally requests a particular setting, it remembers and lists the key and the default value.
• A setting is only saved in the preference file if the value is different from the default.
• However, if you already know the key, you can still set it explicitly.

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