QuickOSM allows you to get quickly with OSM datas in QGIS thanks to Overpass API.
The plugin will keep all columns availables in OSM's datas. You can filter the columns you want by writing col1,col2,col3 with commas.
If no styling file is defined, QuickOSM will check if a "colour" field is present in a line vector layer. This is usefull for route=bus/tram.
Some actions are enabled by default. You can open in openstreetmap.org or with JOSM each entities. Some actions may be added if some fields are presents :
Overpass Turbo is another front-end for OverpassAPI.
Be careful with some queries which come from Overpass Turbo :
<osm-script output="xml" timeout="25">
<id-query {{nominatimArea:montpellier}} into="area"/>
<union>
<query type="node">
<has-kv k="route" v="tram"/>
<area-query from="area"/>
</query>
<query type="way">
<has-kv k="route" v="tram"/>
<area-query from="area"/>
</query>
<query type="relation">
<has-kv k="route" v="tram"/>
<area-query from="area"/>
</query>
</union>
<union>
<item />
<recurse type="down"/>
</union>
<print mode="body" />
</osm-script>
"My queries" shows you all predefined queries.
A query is composed of two files in the user's folder (~/.qgis2/QuickOSM on Linux) :
Quickquery allows you to query on one key=value. You can choose between the extent of the map canvas or in a city. The city is searched by Nominatim, you can avoid strange result by writting the relation OSM's ID.
If you check "Nominatim" but if you let the field empty, it will make a attribute query.
You can let the value empty.
You can choose which OSM objects you want to query on :
This panel allows you to write your own query manually (in XML or OQL).
For each layers provided by OGR, you can specify the outputs you want and which fields you want to get.
From this panel, you can save your query. The outputs and each whitelists will be saved.
OGR can open an OSM file with the help of a special file configuration called osmconf. This file is used to describe each key you want for a column. You can specify these fields for each layer.
You can copy/paste the default osmconf.ini so as to modify it.
For more informations about OSM in OGR, read the documentation
QuickOSM brings a lot of new processing algorithms. You should have a look to these algos. Some models are available in the models's folder of the plugin.
In processing, it's required to parse all layers (points, lines, multilinestrings and multipolygons). To improve performance on layers you don't want, you can put a single comma in the field about columns. This comma avoids a loop in the parser.
For each algorithm, some helps are provided.
Let your imagination take off with processing !