Comments on: JOSM on EeePC

By: crschmidt

crschmidt — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:59:43 +0000

Simon:

It seems like you either intentinoally or unintentionally didn’t read my point about “Why I don’t want a seperate mouse”:

“Part of the reason for getting a laptop is so that i can use it anywhere. Getting a mouse is fine when I’m sitting at a desk, or sitting at a table — but what do I do when I’m curled up in a chair mapping? What do I do when I’m laying in bed in the early morning for hours, too lazy to sit up? With a trackpad (and right click) I can map: I’m not yet aware of any separate mouse that will work well on a down comforter.”

Mac laptops are still one button, for no good reason that I can see. However, that means that ‘Macs have one button mice.’ is true for Mac laptops — and since this is a post about the EeePC (a laptop) comparing to other laptops (Macbooks), I don’t see how your comment is relevant.

By: Simon

Simon — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:54:45 +0000

This is a trivial point, but I cannot understand why so many people think that Macs have one button mice. You can’t even buy a one button mouse from Apple these days!

A visit to the Apple shop today will show that *every* current desktop Mac includes a “Mighty Mouse.” These mice *look* like they have no buttons at all - just a little grey bump on top - but in fact they have:
1) a left-click button (activated by clicking on the top-left);
2) a right-click button (activated by clicking on the top-right);
3) a third button (activated by squeezing the sides)
4) a fourth button (activated by pressing the “grey bump” on the mouse’s top), AND
5) a scroll wheel that can scroll horizontally and vertically (the “grey bump” rotates & clicks!).

Older Macs did come with a one button mouse, but those can be upgraded to a wired Mighty Mouse for US$50 (US$70 for the wireless Bluetooth version). If this is too expensive for you, there’s a Kensington mouse, with two buttons and a scroll wheel, for US$15.

If times are hard and US$15 - US$70 is out of your price range, or you just like Apple’s old one button mice, use the keyboard commands described in the previous posts.

Please! No more posts about Apple’s one-button mice!

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:17:50 +0000

JOSM works well on the EeePC - yes, even the plugins.
On any Linux running running X (such as the EeePC’s standard Xandros distro), you can move windows into virtual space off the visible screen. This means if a window is too tall (such as the plugins window), you can see all of it by using alt-left click and moving the window up until you can see all the buttons/options you need. Works well. I have all my plugins, etc, selected on the EeePC - just like its big brother desktop machine.

By: Dylan

Dylan — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:41:08 +0000

I will stop whining about topology- although much of my frustration in working with vector data from several un-named government agencies is related to poorly digitized (bad-topology) data.

You are correct about the distribution models accepted by most groups that make vector data available- they rely on widely adopted (but severely limited) simple feature models. I think that this comes down to a simple fact. Most people who need vector data are making maps- and usually simple maps. A large part of what I do deals with data stored in PostGIS and relies on the simple feature model.

Getting back to the point- simple feature models are useful and widely used. However, the moment you change from the map-making or browsing mode to a data analysis mode the topological monstrosities found in most shapefiles start to make your life difficult. And thus the whining- if you are in a data creation / editing position, why not make others’ lives more enjoyable by at least enforcing some sort of topological rules on the data? Sooner or later all of the duplicate vertices, micro self-intersections, and misc. digitized junk (usually have to zoom in to find this stuff) will come back to bite you.

By: ominoverde

ominoverde — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:46:18 +0000

Chris, 2 fingers and press button.
Check System Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse -> TrackPad.
On Mouse Gesture, check “for secondary clicks, place two fingers on the trackpad then click the button”.
Then if you move your fingers has the same behavior as clicking and dragging with the second button.

By: crschmidt

crschmidt — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:14:13 +0000

Part of the reason for getting a laptop is so that i can use it anywhere. Getting a mouse is fine when I’m sitting at a desk, or sitting at a table — but what do I do when I’m curled up in a chair mapping? What do I do when I’m laying in bed in the early morning for hours, too lazy to sit up? With a trackpad (and right click) I can map: I’m not yet aware of any separate mouse that will work well on a down comforter.

As always, though, it can be said that there are many technical solutions to all the problems I have. I just have personal preferences — and using the Eee makes mapping easier in circumstances where I’m *not* sitting at a desk to map.

By: John Cowan

John Cowan — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:07:13 +0000

Well, if you insist on not getting a real computer, you could at least get a real mouse, and then you’d have right-click. Besides, isn’t there some workaround like Command-click or the like?

By: crschmidt

crschmidt — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:49:16 +0000

Lorenzo: Two fingers on the trackpad is scroll-wheel behavior, no? I was able to successfully scroll in JOSM using this method (where ’scroll’ == zoom in and out) but that doesn’t give me a right click.

Also, since someone else mentioned it: In general, ctrl+click on mac is a right click — but in JOSM, on my machine, it doesn’t seem to be. It’s possible this is a problem with my setup — don’t know.

By: ominoverde

ominoverde — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:42:50 +0000

About your Mac and right click.
You can easily put two fingers on the trackpad, click and drag.
It takes a moment to get used but works smoothly.

By: crschmidt

crschmidt — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:33:00 +0000

I’d certainly agree that some people feel that way, and I’ve come to accept that it works fine for OSM (And stopped whining about it ;)), but for the users I’ve been working with in the OpenLayers space, the idea of topology is very unfamiliar. It’s possible that this is solely as a result of the very narrow target market that OpenLayers manages to reach, I don’t know. I do know it makes editing data within OL much more difficult

More seriously, it seems like all data coming out of state-type GIS departments is shapefiles, not coverage files: am I wrong on that? are these things being edited topologically and then distributed without topology? Based on my working with these data formats, I’d say this likely isn’t true: it seems like the data itself isn’t actually topological (things which should be on the same location sometimes aren’t) in a way that seems to imply it’s *not* solely as a result of data conversion. Using these as data points is what led my comment: maybe I’m just wrong, and everyone *is* using topology. I don’t know enough about ‘real’ GIS software to tell: my experience is mostly with things like qgis, which seem to mimic the Arc* interface, and are definitely *not* topological.