As a lazy ‘newbie’ is there any way of copying ONLY the nodes on an existing map, and then being able to transfer them to a new layer?
What I had in mind (say) was to copy the nodes from streets surrounding an area, then select the nodes and make an area (way) and tag the landuse. Then move the whole area into the background by tagging the layer as -1.
If I try to do this with the existing roads I often wind up selecting the whole way, and then I get into the frustrations of trying to deselect only the bits I want deselected.
Alternately, is there a more efficient way (pun not intended) of producing residential retail etc landuses?
AFAIK, areas determining landuse don’t necessarily need to be on a different layer, it is allowed to do that of course.
Creating an area can be done using different techniques, none of which is perfect. I use both methods depending on the situation:
Draw a new way using it’s own nodes for each area. This is the cleanest solution, but might involve the most work.
If the area is determined by already existing roads, you can choose to use these ways to define the area instead of drawing new ways. Select all segments surrounding the area (with alt-shift-left-click) and create a new way using those segments and add the area tags to this new way. This lets you reuse existing nodes and segments but is less ‘clean’ (it’s not immediately visible that segments take part in multiple ways).
Note: Make sure all segment arrows used for the area point in the same direction (counter-)clockwise.