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Just a quick question, I've been supporting OSM.org for a while and think the whole data and structure thing is pretty much better then the other options out there, though when I show people the main page their reaction is mostly "it looks like the 80's" and they tend to not use the map, just because of the design. So here's my question: is there an idea of when OSM will update their map-tiles to a current design? It doesn't have to be vector and all that, but just adding a brighter color-scheme in it would be great already, and so most probably drastically improve visitors/volunteers. |
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Discussions on bugs and features of the default style, can be done on this github site will take a look, thanks.
(28 May '19, 10:28)
tijmenheid
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Just to answer the "is there an idea of when" question: I'm not aware of any existing plans for a fundamental overhaul of the openstreetmap-carto map style, or of any serious contenders asking to be made the default on osm.org instead of the current choice. There is a set of guidelines for the inclusion of new styles on osm.org, which would likely be the first step for any style hoping to become the new default. Part of the issue is the technological requirement of running a sufficiently beefy tile server. (This is where vector maps with client-side styling would be a real boon, decoupling design innovation from the need to run a server.) But ultimately, designing and maintaining such a style is also just a lot of hard work, so any major changes would require passionate volunteers. As mentioned by others, there's also the route of suggesting improvements to the existing default style on the team's GitHub issue tracker. However, that tends to work best for specific suggestions – a complete redesign is always going to be a hard sell. The guidelines seem ok, though they call arbitrary to "pleasing aesthetics" & "timeliness", so that might be a thing. The stuff I don'T get is that there are already so much up-to-date designed tiles made for free use and -to me- it seems like it could be just uploaded like any other tile-set. But then again I'm not a pro in this area, so I'll just leave it here. Thanks for the feedback though!
(30 May '19, 17:01)
tijmenheid
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There are four different sets of map tiles available on openstreetmap.org - click the layer switcher to use a different one. If you don't like any of those, Have a look at one of the others listed here. If you don't like any of those, you can always create your own...
And besides the online maps, there are plenty of mobile apps or maps for Garmins that use OSM as well.
thanks guys, no offend but I'm aware of the possibilities, though the thing I was mentioning was the general landing-page of OSM. Compare to other current popular maps it just looks outdated, which would be a false impression for new possible contributors/users, and it could be solved very easily with a modern tile-set.
What is also important IMHO, is that people are highly influenced by Google maps look and feel,, because that is what they see the most. However, this style serves a different purpose (showing (paid) POIs prominently on a dull background) compared to the default style (showing a lot of the data that is available in the DB)
Totally agree with you Escada, it was more referring to updating the style of the elements, for example something like mapbox -> https://www.mapbox.com/maps/ . It just has a more current design. (colors, font, sharpness etc)