Layer Screen - Settings
The Settings screen is where you change colors, line widths, and other characteristics of a layer. To access the settings screen click on a layer in the Layers screen, and then click the Settings tab.
Display Settings:
Line Color
Click here to change the color used to draw all lines on this layer. This also includes area borders, and vector symbols. Click the "classify" link to color-code your layer. This will prompt you to select a field name from your layer and then it will assign a color to each feature based on each feature value in that field. For example, all pipes with a material of "PVC" might be blue while all "Concrete" pipes might be red. If this layer is already classified you will see a link here that reads "Based on ..." Click this link to view or modify the color-coding rules.
Line Opacity
This value controls how translucent the lines appear. A value of 100 results in a solid or opaque line where a value of 0 results in a completely transparent line.
Line Width
The line width used to draw all lines, area borders, and vector symbols. For extra thin lines try using a decimal value like 0.5.
Line Style
Select a style to be used for all lines on this layer. Note that the arrow line style will always point the arrow in the direction that the line was drawn. See the "Reverse Polyline" action on the Feature Form to change the direction of an already drawn line.
Fill Color
Click this color box to change the fill color of all areas drawn on the map. This also includes the fill color of any vector symbols used on this layer. To assign different fill colors to different features based on their field values click the "classify" link and see Color Coding. If this fill color setting says "Based on ..." then color coding has already been setup and you can click this link to view or change the color coding rules. See also, Line Color above.
Fill Opacity
This value controls how opaquely the area fill color is rendered. Set this to 0% if you don't want the interior of areas filled with any color. Or set to 100% if you want a solid fill color. Or set to some other number if you want the fill color to be partially transparent.
Symbol
Click the symbol icon to change what symbol is used to represent all point features on this layer. See the Symbols help topic for more information.
Auto Label
To display text labels on each feature on the map display, check this box and then complete the following options.
Text Field You must indicate which field within your layer contains the text to be used to label each feature. Some fields, such as those auto-populated at run-time, are not available for labeling.
Text Height Indicate here the pixel height of all label text for this layer.
Text Color There is no option for text color, but rather the system auto selects either a black or white text to best contrast with the map background.
Minimum Zoom Level For the purpose of reducing screen clutter, this setting prevents labels from displaying when zoomed out too far. Click the select button to indicate the zoom level at which the labels should first come on. Zoom level is a number from 1 to 20 where 1 is zoomed out to a view of the world and 20 is zoomed in to the view of a single block. The zoom level of the map you are currently viewing is indicated in the pick list. Another way to learn the current zoom level at any time is to hold your mouse over the +/- zoom buttons on the right side of the screen.
Layer Name
Change the name of the layer here.
Visible
Turning a layer on or off here is the same as doing so on the Layers screen.
Min Zoom
Some layers contain so many features that they clutter the screen when you are zoomed out. For example a layer of water meter locations, or a layer of parcels. But you don't want to turn these layers off completely because their information is very valuable when zoomed in. The solution is to indicate a minimum zoom level. Use this setting to indicate that the contents of a layer should not show up on the screen until you are zoomed in so close. Zoom level is a number from 1 to 20 where 1 is zoomed out to a view of the world and 20 is zoomed in to the view of a single block. The zoom level of the map you are currently viewing is indicated in the pick list. Another way to learn the current zoom level at any time is to hold your mouse over the +/- zoom buttons on the right side of the screen. Besides making the map easier to read, automatically hiding certain layers like this when zoomed out will also result a significant improvement in the map's performance.
Save Display Settings
The display settings described above can be manipulated by any user of the map. But whenever the map is reopened, these display settings return to their defaults. Only a map manager can set these defaults and that is done by clicking this button. Clicking here saves the display settings for all layers. This includes remembering which layers are turned on and which layers are turned off. So if the layer is currently turned on when you click save then it will be on by default when any user opens this map in the future. Saving the display settings also remembers which base layer you have selected.
Advanced Settings:
Clickable
Uncheck this box if you do not want the contents of this layer to be clickable on the map display. Consider this scenario, you have building footprint layer on your map and a water meter layer. It is very common that you want to click on a water meter to see its details but you often click the building layer by mistake because they are very close to each other. By making the building layer unclickable, you will avoid doing this.
Clone
The clone feature will allow you to copy the settings of another layer on your map to the current layer. This will not copy any of the data from the other layer it only copies the settings.
Allow non-editors to...
It helps maintain the integrity, and uniformity of a layer when only certain people are allowed to add, change, and delete a layer's content. And that list of people is controlled through the permissions section described below. But for some layers you may want to give ALL your users the ability to contribute notes and attachments even through you are not giving them full edit permission.
Allowable geometry types
Use these checkboxes to limit what types of geometry can be drawn on this layer. It is usually a good practice to only allow one type of geometry on each layer, however, that is not a requirement here.
If you uncheck all three geometry types then the result will be a special mode that allows for the creation of geometry-less features. In this mode, whenever you go to add a new feature you only be prompted to enter the textual information but will not be prompted to indicate where the feature is located on the map.
Permissions
This setting is where you control who has permission to edit the contents of this layer. Anyone on your account can view, browse, and search the layer but these authorized editors are the only ones who can draw new features, edit features, or delete features. Any users, including yourself, who are currently logged in won't gain their new permissions until they log out and log back in. You must be a map manager to change this list of authorized editors. See Permissions for more about this. See note about non-editors above. Click the "Layer Editors" button to manage the list of editors for this layer only. Or click "Edit All Permission" to manage the list of editors for all layers.