Further country specific customization of address fields

[hlaw]

In relation to #2252, using translation to incorporate country-specific placeholder to provide tagging info may work in the case when a language is closely tied to a single country, but not possible in general. Now that we have a vehicle to tailor the address presets per country, I think it would be useful to generalize the address-formats.json file a bit to allow further country specific customization - such as:

• placeholders to including country specific tips
• tool tips if necessary for further details (rather than enlarging the fields for placeholders)
• OR a link to the country specific page for address format
• (relative) width of the fields (currently hardcoded)
• whether a field should be a combo box returning names of nearby features,
• and if so,
  • what to search for (presently also hardcoded, e.g. addr:city will look for place=city/town/village)
  • probably extent of area to look for place=* nodes (if using Nominatim)

Something like (just for example):

{"countryCodes": ["vi"],
 "link" : [{"vi" : "Vi:Key:addr"}] ,
 "format":[[{"field":"housename", 
                  "placeholder":"Housename",
                  "width" : 1,
                  "combo" : false}] ,
           [{"field":"street", 
                  "placeholder":"Alley/street",
                  "width" : 2,
                  "combo" : true,
                  "matchtags" : ["highway"],
                  "values"  : ["name:vi", "name"]},
            {"field":"city", 
                  "placeholder":"City/Province",
                  "width" : 1,
                  "combo" : true,
                  "matchtags" : ["place=city", "place=province"],
                  "values"  : ["ref", "name:vi", "name"],
                  "Nominatim" : 10}], 
            ...
           ]
}

[1ec5]

That’s a good point. I considered translating the placeholders more literally, but doing so would’ve persisted the confusion that I described in #2252. One consequence of the language being closely associated with one country is that foreign administrative structures are typically mapped to the same terminology used in Vietnam. But this proposal would be much more useful for English, which tends to use country-specific terminology.

Note that placeholders would still have to be defined outside of address-formats.json, so that they can be localized in Transifex.

[1ec5]

Country-specific field names would also be useful for turning “Postcode” into the more recognizable “ZIP Code” for U.S. addresses.

[1ec5]

(Cross-posting from #3639 (comment), since that’s a closed PR with little visibility.)

The Japanese address format added in #3712 is a perfect example of why we need the ability to translate the placeholders on a per-country basis. In Vietnamese, addr:county must be translated as “huyện” for Japan. But the same tag is also used in many other countries for administrative units that would be translated as “quận”, “hạt”, or “xứ”, where “huyện” would refer to a distinct administrative unit somewhere else in the hierarchy.

[bhousel]

(Cross-posting my response 😆 )

Oh yeah I should have updated this ticket, but after looking at #3712, I do understand why this is important. addr:quarter and addr:province just look really out of place in a Japanese address.

[MKuranowski]

(Also a cross-post)

The whole Japanese address system is complicated. To show this I've made this graph:

addr:province                PREFECTURE
                            /          \
addr:county                /        DISTRICT
                          /         /     \
addr:city               CITY     TOWN   VILLAGE
                           |       |    /
addr:suburb               WARD     |___/  
                             \    /
                              \__/
                               |
                              /\
                             /  \ 
addr:quarter            MACHI   OUAZA
                         |         |
                         |         |
addr:neighbourhood     CHOUME      AZA
                             \____/
                               |
                               /\
                              /  \
addr:block_number        BLOCK    \
                          |        \
                          |         \
addr:housenumber      HOUSE NO.    LOT NO. + sometimes LOT NO. EXTENSION

It has the common English translations of all fields. As you see the addr:quarter and addr:neighbourhood have completly different purposes than in other countries. The addr:province, addr:county addr:suburb have different names. And please note that Choume, Block and House No./Lot No. are all numeric, so a 123 placeholder for House No. is completly misleading.

That's why the country-specific placeholders are needed in Japan.

[bhousel]

I think this was done in #3643