Talk:Front Page Design
Discuss Front Page Design here:
Explanation text ideas
The following is moved here from Mainpage. Ideas from User:SpeedEvil for blocks of explanatory text to appear, not on the front page actually, but in the relevant parts of the interface (off the tabs) :
Mainpage text that can be gotten to by one click from the main osm.org site should not be confusing - and all pages should have at least a brief explanation.
- Traces
- One of the ways OpenStreetMap is added to is by users going out with a GPS, then uploading a trace of where they went to OpenStreetMap.
- They then use any notes, photos, or audio recordings taken at the same time to convert the bare trace into a section of useful map, noting highway types, postboxes, or anything else along the route.
- For more information see the Beginners Guide
- Below is a list of the most recently uploaded traces throughout the world.
- Traces you have uploaded are here.
- A trace can have tags attached - these are one or many words separated by commas, and describe the trace - for example - London shows the traces tagged 'London' or London tag RSS, or Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
- For each trace below you can click on the filename to download, see more information about it, see it in context on the map, or edit the map with it highlighted. You can also read the users contact page, or find similarly tagged pages, all by clicking on the links in the traces entry.
- User diaries
- Openstreetmap diaries are a way to describe your progress with mapping, or just share more about you.
- You can view diaries only in your language if you wish - for example Russian.
- Once logged in, you can see nearby mappers on your user page, and view their diaries and other information easily.
- Edit - login
- To edit openstreetmap you need to create an account, this is quick and easy.
- However, some aspects of the whole process can be confusing - please feel free to ask for help on IRC, mailing lists or by looking at your user page for local mappers, and then contacting them on their Diary.
- By editing the map, you agree to release all your contributions under the GFDL license.
Posted by User:SpeedEvil 20:49, 13 July 2009
- This was discussed on IRC. The feeling was that large blocks of explanatory text would be overbearing and use up too much screen space, but we might think of better ways of linking to help texts or allow removing a box. -- Harry Wood 17:03, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Move discussion/opinion off the page
This page is mostly discussion and opinion. Normally we try to keep that kind of thing on talk pages (right here). So I suggest we move it all somehow. That won't leave very much left behind of course, but actually interesting things happen when you're left trying to compose a wiki page which reflects "facts" balancing everyone's point of view, so could be worth doing. -- Harry Wood 15:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
bounceapp.com
I had a play with bounceapp.com which seems neat
Here's my labelling of the Front Page: http://www.bounceapp.com/3698
-- Harry Wood 11:58, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
What Users say
Hi I didn't find anywhere the link to Steves Usability vote: http://osm.uservoice.com/forums/41047-general Might be useful for redesign? --!i! 18:30, 19 August 2010 (BST)
More mockups/prototypes
I made a prototype for fun, not sure where to put it on the page. My interest is making the layers more visible. [1] I'm sure others have made homepage alternatives. - LastGrape/Gregory 09:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Put "Help / Wiki" back in place
The link "Help / Wiki" has been removed from http://www.openstreetmap.org . It is replaced by "Help Centre" and "Documentation", which are both not translated, not even into German. You can't just change things without discussion. If you change things, do it right (Translate!) I want to have "wiki" back in place, because a wiki is much more than just a documentation. --Lulu-Ann 14:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Help Centre
It shall be mentioned, that you can ask questions in any language! There shall a link to the wiki on the front page of the help centre. --Lulu-Ann 14:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Dropdown box "edit"
The edit menu is a dropdown box for some weeks now. Let it appear like one and add a dropdown triangle icon on the right. --Lulu-Ann 14:14, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
- That's been DONE -- Harry Wood 11:37, 17 May 2011 (BST)
https
Is it possible to add https support for front page? Useful for privacy issues.--Xan 10:08, 16 May 2011 (BST)
My proposal is to put a button alà Google maps that hides all excepte the map itself. I have netbook and it's annoying to waste display space with logo and links. Possibly putting a "button" alà google maps for displaying or not the logo column will solve this "problem" for OSM users whose have little displays....
User:Xan 06:31, 17 May 2011
- AKA "fullscreen" option. Yes. Much requested. Could be a good thing to add. polymaps has interesting UI for doing this.
- Note that the front page map actually does lose the sidebar automatically if you're one a really low res screen (e.g. mobile) You can try it by resizing the browser window. -- Harry Wood 11:37, 17 May 2011 (BST)
Some ideas....
Following Mikel Maron suggest, I put some ideas here:
- minor idea: put reference of the projection used in map: Mercator, ... Now we have the graphical scale, good, but we need the projection method if we want to be map purist.
- big implementation idea: users could change the CSS of the map. For example displaying in colors the states of USA, or color of highways.... etc.
- big implementation idea: display only what user want: for example only bus stops and highways (for seeing a bus map), or highways, tourism tag and place_of_worship tags (for seeing a tourism map), for example highways and maxspeed, etc. It allows to generate multiple maps for one source. In my opinion this could be the "killer app" for the maps. For example, if you want to visit Venice, perhaps you only want a map with highways, names of highways, addr:*, water routes and tourism=* things. That's all. This maps allow you to move in Venice. More things could be annoying...
User:Xan 06:43, 17 May 2011
- Show the projection? Who wants to be map purist? I don't see why we'd want to clutter the interface with information of such minority interest. It's a bit like the suggestion of showing the lat lon under the mouse pointer (only less interesting because it never changes) ...but these things could be added as preference options.
- Change the css of the map? I take it you mean the stylesheet of the map. Technically it's a very challenging thing to offer style flexibility, worldwide, with updated data, from a scalability (& speed) of tile rendering point-of-view. But a style editor would be awesome, it's true. Normally that kind of thing would be developed as a very separate experiment on another website before being considered for the front page. Indeed CloudMade offer a nice style editor (but it's their commercial product. Not something we can add to the front page) open source alternatives to this would be welcome, but it aint easy!
- Display only what we want? That's actually largely the same suggestion. If you can edit styles to show different highway colours, then you can also decide to show/hide different things.
- -- Harry Wood 11:51, 17 May 2011 (BST)