On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 19:07:17 ce-test, qualified testing bv - Gert Gremmen wrote: > How can we show on OSM.org > the English street names in regions that allow > for local names in Arabic and Hebrew ? > > See for example here: > http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=32.52074&lon=34.95048&zoom=16&layers=M > > where Hebrew names are shown, and where some streets have EN versions, > but are not displayed even when the Hebrew name is absent. > > I saw some discussion about it, but could not understand how to fix it > in > my situation. >> > Shouldn't the names be browser country dependent ? I understand that > this > > requires separate layers for names and tiles, and I am surprised > > no-one ever thought of implementing that.
Take a look at this: http://toolserver.org/~osm/locale/ Here's how it works: it makes separate layers for names and tiles... Basically, as I understand it, the background has streets and things rendered on it, but no text. Then there are 'label layers' (see the + menu on the right) for each language. For every object rendered on the background the label layer renders the text for that object for a single language. To render the text the software finds name:<lang>=* tag and renders it. If no string is found for name:<lang>=* the software renders name=* Currently the OSM Mapnik layer (and Osmarender) render only the name=* tag if present. So, the problem you see (some streets blank even if name:en=* is present) is due to name=* not being present. The toolserver.org link I gave is an experiment, but I think it is the right answer. It means that the 'name' tags are best interpreted like this: name=* The 'default' text to render if no language is requested, or if there is no name:<lang>=* tag for the requested language. name:<lang>=* The text to render if language <lang> is requested. In many cases name=* will be the same as name:<local_language>=*. You could duplicate the entries, and I think it's okay to have that sort of redundancy in the database (especially as it can be automated), but it's not actually required. As an example (choosing a street near the point you gave): http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/75720915 You could add name:he=* and make it the same as name=*. But, if I request language 'he' I will get name=* anyway because name:he=* is not present. This one does not show a name in the OSM Mapnik layer because there is no name=* tag: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/88075816 So add name=* the same as name:en=* In this case, if I request any language except 'en' I get nothing, because there is no name=* tag. (And with the OSM Mapnik layer I can't request a language anyway). One disadvantage of defaulting to name=* is that there is no way of knowing what language it actually is. Does that help? Best wishes, Andrew _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
