Preferences dialog > Advanced Preferences tab

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

Most settings can more easily and safely be modified via the other tabs of this dialog box. Normally you should not need to use this display. Do so with caution. Invalid settings can cause errors and/or loss of data. 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 JOSM being restarted all preference settings equal to their default values loose any markings.

Buttons

Add

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

Edit

To edit one selected key/value pair.

Reset

Sets all selected 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 the 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:

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
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 Action/Draw
edit.initial-move-threshold	pixels		See Action/Select
edit.initial-move-delay	ms		See Action/Select
message.movedManyElements	true or false	unset	See Action/Select
draw.fullscreen	true or false	false	See Action/FullscreenView
zoom.undo.delay zoom.undo.max			See Action/ZoomToPrevious
properties.presets.visible		true	See Dialog/TagsMembership
properties.presets.top		true	See Dialog/TagsMembership
url.openstreetmap-wiki	https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/		See Dialog/TagsMembership
selectaction.cycles.multiple.matches	true or false	false	See Action/Select
osm.notes.daysClosed	-1, 0 or positive integer	7	See Dialog/Notes
osm.notes.downloadLimit	from ... to 10000	1000	See Dialog/Notes
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 Action/SimplifyWay
message.way.split.segment-selection-dialog	true or false	false	See Action/SplitWay
mappaint.wireframe.use-antialiasing	true or false	false	See Action/WireframeToggle
curves.circlearc.angle-separation		20	See Action/CreateCircleArc
merge-nodes.mode	0 or 1 or 2	0	See Action/MergeNodes
upload.comment.max-age	integer	4*3600*1000	See Changeset
mappaint.fillalpha, mappaint.showicons and couple others			See Styles
*.GUI.geometry;			Size and position of dialog boxes
browser.windows			sets another external browser than the default browser to open external links on windows os (use the browser executable)
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
osm-primitives.showid	true or false	false	displays the objects id beside the object in lists
osm-primitives.showversion	true or false	false	displays the objects version beside the object in lists
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

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 the value of a particular setting, it remembers the key and the default value.
• Note that a setting is not saved in the preference file, unless the value is different from the default. However JOSM will remember all keys and their default values which were previously requested.
• This means, that settings related to download may not be in the list, before you did your first download. However, if you already know the key, you can still set it explicitly.

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