[Script] WME Validator v2020.11.1 (PLACES BETA)

[Twister-UK]

Odd, its certainly not an intended bit of functionality, and I can't think which bit of the script might be responsible. Sure it isn't another script you might have installed at the same time?

[Twister-UK]

I'm just wondering, is there any way for Validator to be incorporated into a tab? Instead of having it up all the time. Such as [Validator] [Drives] [Area] [Settings]... But thanks for getting it working so quickly after WME changed.

Ditto.
Validator goes away when you use the URO+ option to eliminate the editor sidebar info.

Also toolbox comes with "hide user info" enabled thus making users wonder where validator went.

Great minds think alike Seriously though, for two independently developed scripts to, almost simultaneously, introduce a workaround for the new bloated user info section of the UI tells you all you need to know about how much this change was welcomed by seasoned editors...

It also reveals the danger of attaching script UIs to parts of the native UI that aren't being used to house native editor controls. Adding a new tab for a script is simply tagging onto the existing UI design that Waze are using themselves to present controls, which means the chances of this part of the UI ever being removed either by Waze themselves or a third party script is vanishingly small, making it a safe place to be adding UIs for third-party stuff too. It also means that users have a consistent place to go to when they want to change settings, providing a more effective level of integration both with the native WME UI and with whatever other tab-aware scripts are installed.

Now, if the overall size or portrait format of the sidebar area makes it difficult to shoehorn your UI in there, or if there's a genuinely good reason why you think your UI deserves to remain visible at all times (and for tools like validator, I'd say this is a reasonable argument to be using), then there's nothing stopping you from creating your own completely new page element to house your UI. Toolbox does it, the WMEOD script I wrote for UK editors does it, and probably others scripts have done it as well. Rolling your own UI container gives you complete independence from anything WME itself does to the UI, as well as isolating you from third-party hacks like the "hide user info" ones we've both implemented, at the expense of a bit more development time.

[Twister-UK]

Until the next WME update removes that tab, adds a load of extra native stuff into it leaving you with no space for the Validator UI, or even just makes one of those ever so subtle tweaks to the element ID, class name etc. that the devs like to do from time to time, preventing scripts from accessing the element even though it's still clearly present and apparently unchanged...

I'll admit that when it was first suggested to me that URO+ needed to have its own tab rather than continuing to use its completely custom UI I wasn't entirely sold on the idea, but now that pretty much everyone else has got on board with using tabs then the benefits become crystal clear. So I think we all as script writers have a certain level of obligation to the editing community to try and make our scripts co-exist as seamlessly as we can, and if that means having to compromise a little on how you'd personally prefer your code to behave then so be it.

The alternative is always to roll your own fully custom UI that exists independently of the WME UI - e.g. Toolbar-style floating UI - and avoid any clashes with what the native UI is doing/will be doing at some point in the future. Which is also more work than simply dumping your UI into an existing WME container and hoping for the best, but it's also the better solution if you really do have an objection to using the native tab UI.

[Twister-UK]

I think the internal structure for street names or cities changed a bit, causing the script to mark all road segments as 'missing country and state'. I haven't done a lot yet with that part of the data model, so I can't remember what it used to look like.

For city objects, properties such as name, stateID etc. have now been moved into an .attributes sub-category instead of hanging off the main object itself. Street objects still (for now at least) hang their properties directly off the object, though I wouldn't rule out a future WME update quietly shuffling them all off into an .attributes sub-category too...

[Twister-UK]

This all sounds... well... a bit masochistic. What else makes all of us waste our time on this crapware?

Apologies for what will probably turn into a somewhat lengthy rambling monologue - I have an occasionally annoying tendency to do this when a subject dear to my heart crops up...


Personally speaking, it's because Waze map editing fulfils a need I've had since early childhood to create maps - I'm fairly certain I learned to read maps before I learned to read words, and there's never been a time in my life since then that I haven't been actively interested in the world of mapping, both as a consumer of the finished products and as an occasional dabbler in their creation.

I started playing around with OSM and Google Map Maker, but never really got into them - something about their editing interfaces never really clicked with me. I did however get really stuck into modelling buildings for Google Earth before they pulled the plug on that programme and switched over to the auto-generated 3D - still got the little gift pack they sent out to all editors with more than 100 (or whatever the threshold was) models accepted into the library...

And then I found Waze. Even back in the days of Cartouche I found myself able to edit in a way I felt map editing ought to behave, with the bonus of being able to see the end results in the app - back then, my local area map was still fairly spartan in detail, so getting stuck into an editing session one day and then seeing how much better the in-app data looked after the next tile updates was a real incentive to keep going.

So that's why I edit.


As for script-writing. I might not have learned to code quite as early as I learned to read maps, but coding has also been an integral part of my life since childhood, and 30+ years later it's an essential part of how I'm able to make a quite comfortable living for myself and my family. I'm quite a simple soul really, fond of logic and puzzles and working out how things tick, and then how to make them go tock instead, and coding provides me with an endless set of puzzles to solve.

I could spend all day in the office writing code for my employer, but I'd still quite happily stay up half the night writing more code for my own projects. Where I tend to struggle is in coming up with ideas for what to code next, so when I find something like WME which provides a never-ending source of inspiration and coding challenges (occasionally even for the right reasons, as opposed to just being triggered by the latest weird and wonderful refactoring of the code by the devteam), I tend to latch onto it until it stops giving me reasons to code.

So far, between the ideas my script users keep giving me, the ideas I keep on having for how I'd like WME to behave, and the endless game of whack-a-mole we play with the devs, WME is very much still my primary source of "spare-time" coding inspiration and shows little sign of being anything else for the forseeable future.


When these two aspects of my life come crashing together, the appeal is so strong to me that, despite the continued best efforts of the devteam to make my life (both as a map editor and as a coder) a misery, I keep plugging away. For now at least, the pros still comfortable outweigh the cons, and as much as I'd love the devteam to start taking scripts into account when deciding what changes they're going to make to the native WME code/UI, I'll also admit that there's just a bit of satisfaction to be gained in getting one over on the devteam either by persuading WME to do something they seem to think it shouldn't do (or at least doesn't need to do), or by allowing existing script functionality to continue working even after the WME internals have been so radically altered that it seems like an impossibility at first to fix it.


God, I sound like a right sad old nerd, don't I...

[Twister-UK]

There is no way I would like to hand over control of what I consider critical parts of the editing experience to Waze HQ. I'd rather it stayed in the hands of people like us - who actually edit and care about our experience and the experience of other editors..

A thought that's ambled across my mind from time to time over the last couple of years is how much additional code would need to be written to provide a complete replacement for WME...

[txemt]

When I select an interstate segment, it pops up a warning about city name being in the city field. It wants me to remove the city name from the interstate. I didn't think that was set in stone.

[txemt]

Why is "same endpoints drivable segment" such a big deal? Case in point, this type of intersection or street layout is common, so why is it a big deal? The only answer to solve this is to create a node, which someone is going to come along later and delete that node, as it's part of "cleanup."

[txemt]

Let's have it here.

[txemt]

Why is "same endpoints drivable segment" such a big deal? Case in point, this type of intersection or street layout is common, so why is it a big deal? The only answer to solve this is to create a node, which someone is going to come along later and delete that node, as it's part of "cleanup."

I get the same thing ctpoole gets. You place a node because validator says you need a node, then you hit save and it throws an error for having the node. It's a vicious cycle.