Iain's Guide to User Scripts
There are a wealth of user scripts available for WME, created by users like you and me to enhance the process of editing the Waze map. This is a basic guide to some of the scripts I reckon are worth having.
I have given each script a 2-number score, ranging 1 to 3.
The first number is how useful the script is: 1 indicates that the script has limited usefulness, probably because it does a particularly specific job. 3 indicates a script you probably can't live without!
The second number indicates how complex the script is: 1 means it's simple & easy to use, up to 3 meaning you will take some time to learn how to use it, or all of it's features.
Data Visualisation
These scripts are mainly, or entirely, concerned with helping you to identify features of the map that might otherwise be missed. This is probably the most important script category and includes several essential scripts that every editor should be using
WME Colour Highlights (WMECH) 3/1
WMECH is one of the oldest scripts around and it's proven it's worth by the number of installs and it's longevity. What it does is simple enough: it adds coloured highlights to the map, allowing you to visualise information about segments and places, like lock level, missing names, restrictions, last editor, specific segment types etc. It also adds some useful highlights to places. Easy to use and difficult to live without. My "normal" segment highlights I have on all the time are: Locks, Alternate Name, No Name, One Way, Unknown Direction. For places, I keep both Locked Places and Incomplete Places on.
WME Toolbox 3/3
WME Toolbox also has a long history. It's gone through several incarnations and been worked on by many people. Currently it's developed and maintained by a team of editors. It provides a wealth of data highlights but also a large number of powerful tools, so it could equally sit in the Productivity heading as well.
Highlights I find useful are: non-ground elevations, over/under-locked segments, tunnels, restrictions, loops, simplifiable segments, u-turns, revcons, dead-end loops, soft turns. Worth special mention are the speed limits highlight and Turn Instruction Overrides.
Then there are the tools - a lot of them! Some are restricted to higher-level editors because of their potential to damage the map if used carelessly. Some that I use all the time are: measurement tool, copy segment data, simplify segments, clear geometry, cut segment, remove unneeded junctions, remove expired restrictions, split loops, clear revcons, clear u-turns.
There are powerful segment and place selection tools that allow you to select segments/places based on 30 different segment attributes or 18 place attributes. Having made your selection of segments, the attribute editor will then allow you to change a single attribute like City Name, without clearing all the Street Names.
This definitely goes on the "Essential" list.
WME Magic 3/2
I would class Magic as another essential tool for all editors. Magic is basically about finding and highlighting mistakes in the map that may need fixing. Not everything it highlights is definitely a problem, but its a powerful and valuable tool for improving the map quality. When you select a highlighted segment, it will also explain what the problem is and give a link to the relevant Wazeopedia page.
Problems that Magic can detect include things like missing speed limits, segments with no way in/out, segments that are very close to another segment but not connected, duplicated Google links and so on.
Although we can localise Magic for the UK to a large extent, it's worth remembering that, as a globally-used tool, it will never perfectly match UK standards.
WME Validator 3/3
Validator is cut from the same cloth as Magic. In fact it pre-dated Magic by quite a bit, but when the developer became inactive, Magic was built to replace it. But now the original developer is back, Validator is open-source and it's doing a good job again.
Validator highlights many of the same sort of issues as Magic, although you don't have the fine-grained control over which ones. A major place where Validator scores is it's ability to scan a large area, then produce a report of all the issues found in a web page with Permalinks. It also has some customisable highlights, although you may need some familiarity with regular expressions to use them!
Validator also has some localisation capability: you should install the UK Validator Localisation pack along with it.
UROverview Plus (URO+) 3/3
URO+ is another script that has been around for a very long time, and is an essential install for all editors. Originally (as the name suggests) it was designed to improve the handling of URs, but over time it has expanded to cover MPs, MCs, Places, Cameras and much more.
Almost any item on the map can have a pop-up added to show additional information when you hover over it. There are extensive filtering options to hide unwanted clutter and let you concentrate on one thing. UR and MP icons can be changed to indicate their type and show the number of comments. URs/MPs on top of each other can be automatically unstacked. There's a Camera Watch to see if someone edits a camera. The Next button on a URs/MPs can be disabled to prevent you accidentally jumping away from the current location with no way to get back.
Honestly - there are so many URO+ options, I don't know what a fair number of them do.
Junction Angle Info (JAI) 3/1
JAI is a very simple script to use - and so essential that we've repeatedly asked Waze to incorporate it into WME. It adds a colour-coded bubble to every turn arrow to show you what instruction will be given at that turn. Not sure if you're going to get a "keep left" or a "turn left"? JAI will remove that doubt forever.
WME Place Interface Enhancements (PIE) 3/2
WME PIE is a relatively young script, but it's already in my essential list. It adds a score of enhancements when editing places. There are tools to simplify/clear geometry, rotate, resize, orthogonalise, rotate area places. You can add buttons for categories, copy places, filter places. New places can automatically get their address from the closest segment. Place names can be shown on the map. The segment that will be navigated to can be shown. Particularly useful is highlighting of places linked to Google results that are closed, or a long way away.
WME Map Tiles Update
A simple, but useful tool. It pulls data from the Waze Status page to give you information about when the last map updates were made. You can see the information as a pop-up if you hover over the icon, but it will pop up automatically when an update has been done since the last time you opened WME.
Productivity Tools
These scripts are mainly designed to make map editing easier, by saving clicks, adding tools or enhancing the WME user interface