Potlatch 2/Developer Documentation/Overview

So you've checked out the Potlatch 2 source code with Git. Here's the most important stuff inside:

• potlatch2

  • net/systemeD

    • controls

      Custom controls (auto complete, and the "floating alert" that gives feedback to users)

      halcyon

      Halcyon is the rendering engine. In here is all the stuff about the map data itself, rendering it, and manipulating it. Notable classes in this folder are Map (concerned with the visible portion of the map), MapPaint (display it), the EntityUI classes (which deal with the user-interactive, visible representation of map objects), TileSet (background layers), and VectorLayer (GPX layers, bugs layers...)

      • connection

        The various map entities (Node, Way, Tag, Relation, Changeset...) are all defined here, with some support classes. The "Connection" itself holds all currently downloaded data (up to around 1000 objects, give or take - objects that are off screen and not modified get purged).

        • actions

          Actions manipulate map objects in pre-defined ways, so the undo system can undo and redo them. You don't just move a node around, you use a "MoveNodeAction".

        styleparser

        This is what parses MapCSS (and hence, potlatch2.css) into something Halcyon can render.

      potlatch2

      All the stuff that is specific to the Potlatch 2 editor, rather than the rendering of objects. In theory.

      • controller

        Controller states capture the interaction between the mouse/keyboard and the map. They define all the rules like what happens if you click on a node while drawing a way.

        mapfeatures

        The logic for "map features" - the pre-defined combinations of tags that make a road a road, a bakery a bakery etc. That includes parsing map_features.xml, and also recognising objects.

        • editors

          The logic for editing each tag in the Simple view.

        tools

        Complex editing manipulations captured in toolbox buttons.

        Utils

        Esoteric interfaces with other data formats and other sites.

  resources

  All the icons, map_features.xml (and subordinate files), help files, MapCSS files etc. Basically, anything that isn't needed at compile time, but which will be downloaded from the server as needed.