Potlatch: what is the status with Flash / Adobe Air?

I put my endorsement under Richards application. Potlatch is the most effective tool for my kind of mapping.

Just to say: if you would like to continue to use Potlatch, please do add your name/comments to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Microgrants/Microgrants_2020/Proposal/Potlatch_2_for_desktop as that will help make the case for the small amount of funding required.

Done.

Done.

Done

Delighted to say that OSMF has agreed to fund the required work to P2 (as well as work to Nominatim and osm2pgsql), so there’ll be a standalone, browser-free version of Potlatch later this autumn.

I haven’t decided yet whether to call it Potlatch 3. :slight_smile:

Good news! :slight_smile:

That’s excellent news.
and as Jan volunteered, happy to Beta test too.

@Richard: as time allows, I’d much like to be available as a beta- or even alpha-tester.

No problem. So far I have a proof-of-concept AIR version launching, but much still to do! I’ll keep this thread updated with progress.

Thanks to OSMF and you, Richard! I am looking forward to the new P3.

Firefox and Adobe Flash are more and more restrictive when starting Potlatch 2. It would not have been more than 400 000 nodes created by me without this smart map editor. So I hope very much the new standalone version will be ready before Flash will cease to work.

Hello Richard, how are you? Still more than a month left, but I think many of us “Potlatch-fans” are urgently waiting for the new software.
Best wishes
Axel

There is a very very early Mac-only build here: https://www.systemed.net/potlatch/download

Still lots to do, but it works and you can edit with it! It supports the “Edit with Remote Control” option on osm.org, and uses OAuth to log into OSM and save your edit.

Once I’ve got a few more tweaks done I’ll be looking at builds for other platforms. Windows should be fairly easy but I don’t have a Windows machine, so will need to rent one first (probably from paperspace.com who I’ve used in the past). For Linux my current thinking is to recommend running the Windows version under Wine.

@Richard, many thanks for your efforts. I regret stating that Wine is not an option for me as a Linux-only user. A Potlatch3 that cannot be used natively on the more common Linux platforms (CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu…) is next to useless, for me.

I’ve just updated https://www.systemed.net/potlatch/download/ with the latest version and with a cross-platform AIR file.

I think that it should be possible to run Potlatch natively on Linux. The last version of Adobe AIR to be released for Linux was 2.6 and Potlatch should function without any post-2.6 features.

It doesn’t appear to be simple to install AIR on Linux, however. I have just provided a bunch of links at https://www.systemed.net/potlatch/download/ - I hope that at least one of them will work. It would be great if any Linux users could try these and report back, so that we can recommend a method for people to use! Unfortunately I’m not experienced enough with desktop Linux to be able to provide failsafe instructions.

@Richard, many thanks so far for Potlatch3 :slight_smile:
Running Windows 10 Home 64-bit version 20H2 I’ve installed Adobe Air and your 2020-11-15 version of Potlatch3 with the downloaded Potlatch3.air file. Installation (administrator privileges requireded) was without issues. The only pop-up during installation was about “publisher unknown”, but you can continue the install process.
Running Potlatch3 is as expected and ‘funny’ to see it running in it’s own standalone desktop window. Up to now I have played around a littlebit and have some questions / remarks.

  • The rendering of dashed lines (ways) was very irregular in first instance. Some examination showed that Potlatch was running on the Integrated Intel Graphics engine. After changing settings to use the Nvidia Geforce 940M instead, the rendering was ok and identical to Potlatch 2. I suppose this is not a Potlatch issue, but rather Adobe Air?
  • At start Potlatch3 shows a very big area covering nearly the whole globe. If you use the “+” plus button to zoom in to your area of interest, this firstly takes quite some time and secondly ends with a warning message that you are downloading too much data, however you can continue after that. Question: is there a way to start Potlatch3 with a URL pointing to your area of interest on OSM - for example https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=52.0723&mlon=4.4226#map=15/52.0723/4.4226 ? I know that in the Potlatch3 window there is a search button in the upper left, but there you can only search on ‘place name’ - not on an URL.
  • Related to this issue: How can you integrate Potlatch3 in the OSM environment @ openstraatmap.org - is this called ‘Remote Control’? The Edit list on osm.org shows ‘Edit with Potlatch 2 (in-browser editor)’, ‘Edit with iD (in-browser editor)’ and ‘Edit with Remote Control (JOSM or Merkaartor)’. Is Potlatch3 enabled for Remote Control? If yes, how to use it? When I have both osm.org and Potlatch3 open, the loaded area in Potlatch3 does not change when I shift the mapview area on osm.org. Also when I first go to my area of interest on osm.org and then press ‘Edit’ with the ‘Remote Control’ option, sometimes an error message appears that JOSM or Merkaartor cannot be found, and sometimes nothing happens and also the content in the Potlatch3 window is not being changed. Should this work as described, or is this all latency and data need more time to get downloaded?
    I’m using the Firefox browser, latest version 82.0.3.

PS. Is this the right place to discuss Potlatch3 issues? Thanks again for all your work on Potlatch3!

On the github page ( https://github.com/systemed/potlatch2/issues ) you refer to on the download page, there is no entry for potlatch3?

EDIT / UPDATE 2020-11-17:
Tried again and happy to report that ‘Remote Control’ does work. First go to osm.org and login, then start Potlatch3. Select the area of interest on osm.org and click Edit / Edit with Remote Control (in the settings on osm.org you can make this the default), then wait some seconds (may vary) for map data and imagery to settle. Potlatch3 is ready for editing now.
My conclusion now is that slow data download raised my questions at first use of Potlatch3. Happy to be here with Potlatch3 without needing the Adobe Flashplayer anymore :slight_smile:

Brilliant - really glad it’s working for you!

This is as good a place as any to discuss P3, but you can create a new issue on the P2 Github issue tracker too.

The GPU issue is interesting. I’ve just uploaded a second build that uses CPU rendering (unfortunately AIR doesn’t allow you to switch between them at runtime).

You can now (as of today’s build) paste an osm.org URL into the search box, and it will recognise the lat/lon and jump straight there. This also works for URLs from a few other sites, e.g. waymarkedtrails.org.

Both new 2020-11-17 versions are running fine. The non-CPU version running on the Nvidia GPU feels to rum somewhat smoother, but this is only a first impression.
The option to be able to paste an osm.org (and more) URL into the search box is a very good enhancement. It enables directly going to the spot in editing mode when someone wants to check the details of somebody’s URL posted in this forum or alike. Good work!

Just did my first edit with Potlatch3: https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/94461859#map=13/47.0361/6.2093
It works smoothely with very much similarity to the browser version.
Some wishes:

  • A button to show the current map section as it appears on OpenStreetMap
  • Resume work at the last edited map section
  • auto complete “tracktype” just like “bu” becomes “building”
  • when a way that is part of a relation is marked: show way-tags first, then let the relations be chosen / edited.
    Looking forward to the next level!