Improve the readability of ways

These mapstyles improve the visibility of ways (highways, waterways, buildings). Highways and waterways have colors that are more pregnant. Very handy for validators that are inspecting an area when zoomed out. Or for areas that are full of other objects.

The buildings mapstyle has a style setting to choose the color and to vary the width of the outline of the building.

Usage and installation

1. Open the Map Paint preferences
   • via the header of the Map Paint Styles panel with the Preferences button or
   • via View menu → Map paint styles → Map paint preferences or
   • via the general preferences dialog Menu Edit → Preferences → Map Settings (3rd button on the left) → Map Paint Styles (2nd tab))
2. Click the plus sign on the right and enter the URL of the style file: https://josm.openstreetmap.de/josmfile?page=Styles/ColorWays&style
3. Confirm by clicking the OK button (twice) and exit

See for more installation instructions: https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Styles

When installed you can right click on the mapstyle and choose building outline color and line width.

Legend

Highways

• unclassified -> white
• track -> dotted brown - green
• residential -> light green - blue
• service -> aqua blue

Waterways

• river -> default
• stream -> DeepSkyBlue

The code

meta {
    title: "Color Ways";
    description: "Choose your preferred color and line width of building outlines for better visibility on different backgrounds. Also highways and waterways have clearer colors";
    version: "0.1.34_2024-02-27";
    author: "Martien van de Griendt, osm username martien-vdg";
    link: "https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Styles/ColorWays";
}

/* Setting Options */

setting::colordisplay {
  type: color;
  label: tr("Color used for displaying buildings");
  default: green;
}

setting::building_line_width {
  type: double;
  label: tr("Choose line width of building");
  default: 2;
}


/* Settings */

/* Buildings */

way[building] {
    color: setting("colordisplay");
}

way[building] {
    width: setting("building_line_width");
}


/* Highways */

way[highway=unclassified]
{
    width: 4;
    color: white;
}

way[highway=track]
{
    width: 4;
    color: peru;
    dashes: 12,9;
    dashes-background-color: springgreen;
}

way[highway=service]
{
    width: 3;
    color: aqua;
}

way[highway=residential]
{
    width: 2;
    color: Aquamarine;
}

/* Waterways */

way[waterway=stream]
{
    width: 2;
    color: DeepSkyBlue;
}

way[waterway=river]
{
    width: 6;
}

Styles_ColorWays-style.mapcss, Styles_ColorWays.zip

If you have questions or remarks, you can reach me via ​https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/martien-vdg

In the attachmentsection of this page (below) you find the seperate mapstyles for buildings, highways and waterways.