The main challenge with filling in neighborhoods is adding the addresses.
Adding the buildings is not so bad if the houses are mostly rectangles and only a couple sizes; copy/paste is pretty quick. Labeling other properties is similarly straightforward. However, adding hundreds of unique addresses is prohibitively tedious! I currently have to click on a single house, click on the address field, check the address, enter the address, then repeat for the next house. This is not so bad until it’s repeated 100s (or 1000s) of times.
PLEASE tell me I’m just being foolish and there is an easy way to scroll through multiple selected buildings to enter the same field in each! I’m picturing something like: select all houses, enter first address, HOTKEY TO NEXT HOUSE, enter next address. Not only would it remove several steps, but also remove manual mouse clicks which require diverting attention. If I could do this, I could have a list of addresses and zip through an entire area pretty quickly without losing my place constantly looking back and forth.
I’m still quite new to this, so I’m not sure if this is the best thing to do, but in JOSM you can paste data.
I copy the address from the street name down, so street, village, town, postcode / zip code, and paste it to the buildings on that street. I haven’t done it for a little while, but I’m pretty sure that you can select multiple buildings at once too, saving some time that way.
Yes, you can copy and paste, but it is even easier to use the dropdown. It will automatically give options that match surrounding labels such as street name, city, state, zip, etc., and of course selecting and editing multiple buildings is relatively easy. (not sure if JOSM does this but the web editor does)
The part that is slowing me down is getting quickly from the “housenumber” field on one house to the “housenumber” field on the next house. It has to be done one at a time because they are unique - and typing is faster than copy/paste for this. At present, I am having to mouseover and click on each house and then re-select the housenumber field; trivial for a small number, but adds up when repeated 100s or 1000s of times.
Have you seen the HouseNumberTaggingTool for JOSM? It looks like it might be what you’re looking for. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks good :)
https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Help/Plugin/HouseNumberTaggingTool
Yes, another user shared that as well, and it has been a great time saver. Thanks!
Why not using josm, filtering for those buildings and filling out all the info once
Okay, so I have the houses selected in JOSM. I can only find an option to change all at once. How do I cycle from one at a time? Or is there a way to view them side-by side like a spreadsheet? That would also work. If you have the time to explain it step by step I would really appreciate it and it would help me learn a lot! Thank you.
Note: new to JOSM
@gedaliyah Not entirely automated, but there’s a JOSM plugin for easier input of adresses in a street.
https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Help/Plugin/HouseNumberTaggingTool
This helps a lot! It took me a minute to figure out how to use it but it allows for pretty quickly from the number field on one house to the same field in the next. It could only be improved if there were a way to cycle directly through a group of selected houses without clicking in between, but still a huge improvement!
@gedaliyah Why would you need to go on a house more than once?
I think I’m being unclear. Right now, the tool makes it:
- mouse over and click on first house
- hotkey K
- choose editing options (housenumber)
- type house number
- enter
- Mouse over and click on next house (this is the part I wish could be a “next house” hotkey. Am I missing something?)
- hotkey K
- repeat previous 4 steps as needed
@gedaliyah Ah gotcha. I can’t think of a way for any tool to find the “next house” as that would depend on multiple criteria. You say 4 steps, have you tried playing with the bottom increment slider? If mapping from scratch you’d usually have no missing housenumber. My workflow is to click on house, K, Enter, repeat until end of one side of the road (odd or even numbers), then onto the other side
