v59.0-alpha1

[westnordost]

🗺️ MapLibre (#5693), by @Helium314 and me

Migrated from the map renderer tangram-es to MapLibre. The former has effectively been unmaintained for quite a few years and does not support modern iOS, this solves some long-standing display and crash issues.

Display-wise, nothing much should change, the map will just look and behave a little different.

Issues solved by the migration are #5601, #5241, #5216, #5161, #5146, #5137, #5048, #5027, #5006, #4844, #4830, #4556, #4554, #4550, #4542, #4522, #4277, #4259, #4026, #3417, #3397, #3346, #3275, #3022, #2878, #2711, #2703, #2612, #2571, #2373, #2359, #2358, #2187, #1713, #1684, #1264, #1019, #869, #807, #318, #179, mapstyle#119, mapstyle#56... maybe more. Thanks to @riQQ for this list.

General improvements

• Redesigned the settings screens, about screens and tutorial screens (Re-do UI of About screens and Settings screens in Compose #5719)
• minor improvements for right-to-left localization (Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi)
• fix rare crash issues (Crash when editing POI #5804)

New Quests

• "What is the width of the opening here?", asked for gates etc. (Barrier opening #5713, add bollard / block to barrier_opening #5800) by @Nick-Tallguy

Removed Quests

• Asking "Is this a one-way street?", based on processed data from ImproveOSM because Grab is shutting it down (Remove improveosm oneway suspects quest #5725)
• Asking "Can you pick up parcels here?" and "Can you drop off parcels here?" because it turns out that it is often not surveyable and the answer is always the same for one brand of parcel lockers (Ability to send packages from parcel locker not surveyable #5763)

Overlay Improvements

• Addresses: Presence of housenumbers is now highlighted in blue (Colour separation of buildings with/without addresses #5748)
• Bike paths, Sidewalks: Highlight less situations as missing (Cycleway overlay marks both sides of roundabout as missing #5716, Shows a missing cycleway on one side if the other side has any cycleway information #5722)
• Bike paths: When selecting "designated shared-use path", always mark it as designated for pedestrians, too (when changing bicycle=yes to designated considerer also foot #5742)
• allow hiding notes that block editing with an overlay (Parking overlay blocked by note created by StreetComplete #5703)

Quest Improvements

• Ask many road-related quests also for busways (Treat busways mostly like roads #5749)
• Recycling containers: Also ask for containers that have been mapped as an area (No "What can be left here for recycling?" for recycling containers mapped as way #5735)
• Recycling containers: Also highlight nearby waste containers and bins (Show trash cans and garbage dumpsters in recycling materials quest #5754)
• Accepting cards: Don't ask for places that explicitly require no fee (Exclude fee=no for AddAcceptsCards #5772), by @HolgerJeromin
• Drinking water: Don't ask for intermittent water sources (Skip intermittent water sources too (as we skip seasonal ones) #5750), by @mnalis
• Track type: Don't ask for track type on bridges (Update AddTrackType quest to not include any ways tagged with bridge #5731), by @kmpoppe
• Building levels, roof shapes: Also ask for houseboats (Add houseboats to BUILDINGS_WITH_LEVELS #5737), by @HolgerJeromin
• Traffic signals vibration: Disabled in Finland (Disable traffic_signals:vibration=* in Finland #5795), by @mnalis
• Clothing container operators: Allow answering that there's no information on the container (add operator:signed=no option to "Add operator for old clothes container quest" #5764)
• Check existence: Don't ask if something else on the same place has just been checked ('Is this still here' asked immediatly after 'vegetarian option' has been filled #5729)
• Other small improvements ("What kind of Car Wash is this?" Quest needs to have an option for multiple combinations #5740, Feature request: Mention bridge as attribute of highway #5792, Don't use disused:shop=yes on non-shops #5548, tourism=camp_site: power_supply asks wrong question #5776, ...), thanks @mnalis

---

This discussion was created from the release v59.0-alpha1.

[IdeallyGrey]

Just curious, you mention the old map renderer no longer supports modern iOS, yet StreetComplete is for Android. Is iOS support a future goal?

[HolgerJeromin]

Yes. See #5421

[westnordost]

To be precise, the map renderer tangram-es does work on iOS, but uses the OpenGL ES graphics API to render the map. Now, since a couple of years, Apple declared OpenGL ES on iOS deprecated, developers should rather use their own graphics API called Metal. So, while apps that use tangram-es for map rendering may still run on modern iOS devices, it is unclear for how much longer. Meanwhile, even Android is replacing OpenGL ES with Vulkan in the coming years.

So, the migration TBH has primarily been done because tangram-es is just not maintained anymore, bugs are not fixed, the library is not adapted to modern standards etc. but also because it is another step to eventually reach an iOS port of StreetComplete.

MapLibre-native does support Metal, and Vulkan support is being added. The project is in very active development and basically the open source industry standard when it comes down to displaying vector tiled maps (based on OSM data).

[ERYpTION]

Would a quest similar to the new "What is the width of the opening here?" be possible for barrier=cycle_barrier regarding the passableness of cargo bikes, wheelchairs etc? Or is it too difficult to judge whether they can pass since it often does not simply depend on max width?

[matkoniecz]

maybe at least for simple barrier=cycle_barrier with single obvious gap width it would be doable?

[Nick-Tallguy]

Wiki for cycle_barriers
I'm interested in this for the future.

[mnalis]

• Ask for opening width on cycle_barrier=single|diagonal too #5820

[RubenKelevra]

@westnordost I guess this means we need new project screenshots for the readme. Should I give that a go? 🤔

[matkoniecz]

website/android play preview also may need new ones, in multiple languages

[westnordost]

Thank you, but oh, not that much changed yet. And it is a lot of work, because I did create them for many different languages. It also needs to be done with a specific (virtual) device to fit the frame displayed on https://streetcomplete.app/

I think this should rather be done later, when I also ported the main screen controls and other things visible in the screenshots, e.g. the quest bubble ball pit will need to be replaced with something different, see #5595

[RubenKelevra]

I gave it a go on my phone. But it's kinda hard to find the same content.

But now reading this, I don't think you can use them :D

Btw: I think it looks great on https://streetcomplete.app/ with the phone around, but it looks odd to have the status bar on top and the “pull up” bar on the bottom in the readme - kinda like we don't know how to crop a screenshot ;)

#5825

[westnordost]

Yeah, sorry, I can't use them. Thank you for your effort though.

If I remember correctly, a few years ago I made them with a very specific Android emulator, I think Pixel6. When I re-do them (or someone else re-does them), probably it is best to use also a Pixel6 (emulator).

[RubenKelevra]

Just wanna say thank you. The panning, zooming is now so(!) much more smooth on my 3 yo midrange smartphone. Great job!

[HolgerJeromin]

Same here.
I expected a buggy, unstable alpha but it just works so much smoother and better than the old version!

[westnordost]

Thank you for testing the alpha, guys! I didn't expect anyone would download and test it (apart from the devs)

[Helium314]

The panning, zooming is now so(!) much more smooth on my 3 yo midrange smartphone

Interestingly on my 10 year old midrange phone I had the opposite impression (with an older MapLibre version though)

[davidpnewton]

As I said on the SCEE discussion area, the transition with the alpha has been extremely smooth for me. No crashes, and only minor hiccoughs in the form of the weird missing underground fire hydrant icon problem and the overlay icons in the things overlay showing up with grey backgrounds rather than white. Both now fixed.

Clearly it's been a lot of hard work over the last few months. It is appreciated.

[RubenKelevra]

There's been a report of rendering issues in of the caron in response to the alph, but it sounds like the issues it not related to the alpha itself but being there for a while now, if I understand him correctly:

Screenshots

I've asked him to create a bug report dedicated to this, just in case he doesn't pick up on that: can someone confirm this?

Source: https://x.com/rudolfs58991170/status/1826240104991760839

[matkoniecz]

sounds like #5006

[matkoniecz]

though #5006 (comment) is now confusing 0 has they tested with MapLibre?

[RubenKelevra]

Not sure, but the alpha looks fine to me. But I'm not sure if it was broken before - don't see a lot of carons in Germany

[mnalis]

I've added comment to #5006 (comment) - yes, display of those carons and similar is broken on Tangram-ES (on Android 13 and above only) and work fine in MapLibre. So, it should fix their problem automatically when 59.0 gets released.

[RubenKelevra]

There seems to be some issues at the app start. SC just crashed 3 times in startup without even showing, forth time worked fine and is stable now.

[matkoniecz]

see #5829 (comment)

[HolgerJeromin]

Just as a note:
The just released alpha2 shows alpha1 in about screen :-)

[HolgerJeromin]

Same in alpha 3 btw.
Android app info shows 3, about screen shows 1, changelog shows 2 (which is kind of expected)

[Helium314]

What? How is that possible?

The text is set to "v" + BuildConfig.VERSION_NAME, and version name is clearly updated. So... not possible. If you Ctrl+B on VERSION_NAME you even see the correct version.

Maybe there is some sort of cache involved. For me even the compose preview shows the wrong number.

[mnalis]

Maybe there is some sort of cache involved

Quite possible, IMHO.
Because, if I let GitHub build debug version of that v59.0-alpha3 tag for me, then it will identify correctly as v59.0-alpha3 in About screen, unlike the official release version which still identifies as v59.0-alpha1 in he About screen...

[matkoniecz]

What? How is that possible?

"There are only two hard things in Computer Science; cache invalidation and naming things and one-off errors" ?

I have seen some weird caching issues in Android Studio at times. At some points I ended deleteting repo (except .git) and doing git reset to force AS into noticing that files changed (it kept building my personal fork version partially with normal version release id, what was breaking photo-taking...).

[mnalis]

FYI, v59.0-alpha4 now identifies itself correctly in About screen...