Divide and map. Now. helps mappers by dividing some big area into smaller squares that a human can map.
It’s been a year already since I announced the damn project, so it’s time to summarize the first year of development.
For mappers
I finally managed to make the manager manager-friendly. There is news for the client, too. Along with mapping random or recent squares, a mapper can choose to map the nearest square. Moreover, reviewers can review a newbie square.
I added background OpenStreetMap for the squares. When you click on a square, you may lock that square manually. When you lock multiple squares, you can merge them.
A mapper can share the link to an area or a square. A mapper can download the client and open it on the computer (saving 96KB of bandwidth next time.)
I fixed bugs of the damn plugin reported by #OSMWorldDiscord guys (Thanks again!) and added the “lock & open in JOSM” link to the client.
I wrote a new client. Wondering, how the integration without integration to iD editor looks like? Open the panel and check it out.
For communities
Divide and map. Now. has a separate repository for the deployment. You need to change seven rows in the config files (five rows with security and OpenStreetMap OAuth tokens, one row with the domain, one with the email address) and create one empty file. And you are ready to go.
I was wondering what is missing in the basic setup. I mean – the minimum you need to run is the server. You probably want a client and manager, too. That’s all. You know – the damn project helps mappers …
However, you are part of a community changing the world. The client and manager are OK, but you probably want to tell others about the community.
So in the config file of the deployment repository, you change the eighth row specifying the Docker repository with your web page. As I’m not too fond of the templates for all the running instances, there is no restriction on the Docker repository. You will probably use some static web page generator with Nginx to serve the result.
In 2020
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The development was active.
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About 100 mappers tried the https://www.damn-project.org/ instance. About ten of them created some area.
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The guys of https://tarefas.mapeia.space/ run their own instance.
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The guys of #OSMWorldDiscord run their online mapathon on the https://www.damn-project.org/ instance.
Based on the above, I am confident to say that the Divide and map. Now. is proven working.
Plans for 2021
A few things are waiting for 2021. I started the source code migration to sr.ht, and I need to move the plugin and the server there yet. I am going to improve server API documentation as it’s necessary for 3rd party clients. And I want to refactor the client. (Again, as refactoring never ends.) I have some ideas based on the feedback – at least better control of the zoomable map and a bit of performance tuning will happen.
I’m sure there will be unplanned work, too.