QGIS Configuration¶

General Settings¶

Application

• Select the Style (QGIS restart required) and choose between ‘Oxygen’, ‘Windows’, ‘Motif’, ‘CDE’, ‘Plastique’ and ‘Cleanlooks’.
• Define the Icon theme . It can be ‘default’ or ‘Night Mapping’.
• Define the Icon size .
• Define the Font and its Size. The font can be Qt default or a user-defined one.
• Change the Timeout for timed messages or dialogs .
• Hide splash screen at startup
• Show tips at startup
• Check QGIS version at startup to keep you informed if a newer version is released
• QGIS-styled group boxes
• Use native color chooser dialogs (see Color Selector)
• Use live-updating color chooser dialogs (see Color Selector)
• Canvas rotation support (restart required)

Project files

• Open project on launch (choose between ‘New’, ‘Most recent’, ‘Welcome Page’, and ‘Specific’). When choosing ‘Specific’ use the to define the project to use by default. The ‘Welcome Page’ displays a list of recent projects with screenshot.
• Create new project from default project. You have the possibility to press on Set current project as default or on Reset default. You can browse through your files and define a directory where you find your user-defined project templates. This will be added to Project ‣ New From Template. If you first activate Create new project from default project and then save a project in the project templates folder.
• Prompt to save project and data source changes when required
• Prompt for confirmation when a layer is to be removed
• Warn when opening a project file saved with an older version of QGIS
• Enable macros . This option was created to handle macros that are written to perform an action on project events. You can choose between ‘Never’, ‘Ask’, ‘For this session only’ and ‘Always (not recommended)’.

System Settings¶

SVG paths

Add or Remove Path(s) to search for Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) symbols. These SVG files are then available to symbolize features or decorate your map composition.

Plugin paths

Add or Remove Path(s) to search for additional C++ plugin libraries

QSettings

It helps you Reset user interface to default settings (restart required) if you made any customization.

Environment

System environment variables can now be viewed, and many configured, in the Environment group (see figure_environment_variables). This is useful for platforms, such as Mac, where a GUI application does not necessarily inherit the user’s shell environment. It’s also useful for setting and viewing environment variables for the external tool sets controlled by the Processing toolbox (e.g., SAGA, GRASS), and for turning on debugging output for specific sections of the source code.

• Use custom variables (restart required - include separators). You can [Add] and [Remove] variables. Already-defined environment variables are displayed in Current environment variables, and it’s possible to filter them by activating Show only QGIS-specific variables.

System environment variables in QGIS

Data Sources Settings¶

Feature attributes and table

• Open attribute table in a dock window
• Copy features as ‘Plain text, no geometry’, ‘Plain text, WKT geometry’, or ‘GeoJSON’ when pasting features in other applications.
• Attribute table behavior : set filter on the attribute table at the opening. There are three possibilities: ‘Show all features’, ‘Show selected features’ and ‘Show features visible on map’.
• Default view: define the view mode of the attribute table at every opening. It can be ‘Remember last view’, ‘Table view’ or ‘Form view’.
• Attribute table row cache . This row cache makes it possible to save the last loaded N attribute rows so that working with the attribute table will be quicker. The cache will be deleted when closing the attribute table.
• Representation for NULL values. Here, you can define a value for data fields containing a NULL value.

Data source handling

• Scan for valid items in the browser dock . You can choose between ‘Check extension’ and ‘Check file contents’.
• Scan for contents of compressed files (.zip) in browser dock . ‘No’, ‘Basic scan’ and ‘Full scan’ are possible.
• Prompt for raster sublayers when opening. Some rasters support sublayers — they are called subdatasets in GDAL. An example is netCDF files — if there are many netCDF variables, GDAL sees every variable as a subdataset. The option allows you to control how to deal with sublayers when a file with sublayers is opened. You have the following choices:
  • ‘Always’: Always ask (if there are existing sublayers)
  • ‘If needed’: Ask if layer has no bands, but has sublayers
  • ‘Never’: Never prompt, will not load anything
  • ‘Load all’: Never prompt, but load all sublayers
• Ignore shapefile encoding declaration. If a shapefile has encoding information, this will be ignored by QGIS.
• Add PostGIS layers with double click and select in extended mode
• Add Oracle layers with double click and select in extended mode
• Execute expressions on server-side if possible

Hidden Browser Path

This widget lists all the folder you chose to hide from the Browser panel. Removing a folder from the list will make it available in the Browser panel.

Rendering Settings¶

Rendering tab of Project Properties dialog

Rendering behavior

• By default new layers added to the map should be displayed
• Use render caching where possible to speed up redraws
• Render layers in parallel using many CPU cores
• Max cores to use
• Map update interval (default to 250 ms)

• Enable feature simplification by default for newly added layers
• Simplification threshold
• Simplification algorithm: This option performs a local “on-the-fly” simplification on feature’s and speeds up geometry rendering. It doesn’t change the geometry fetched from the data providers. This is important when you have expressions that use the feature geometry (e.g. calculation of area) - it ensures that these calculations are done on the original geometry, not on the simplified one. For this purpose, QGIS provides three algorithms: ‘Distance’ (default), ‘SnapToGrid’ and ‘Visvalingam’.
• Simplify on provider side if possible: the geometries are simplified by the provider (PostGIS, Oracle...) and unlike the local-side simplification, geometry-based calculations may be affected
• Maximum scale at which the layer should be simplified
• Magnification level (see the magnifier)

Rendering quality

• Make lines appear less jagged at the expense of some drawing performance

Curve segmentation

• Segmentation tolerance: this setting controls the way circular arcs are rendered. The smaller maximum angle (between the two consecutive vertices and the curve center, in degrees) or maximum difference (distance between the segment of the two vertices and the curve line, in map units), the more straight line segments will be used during rendering.

• Tolerance type: it can be ‘Maximum angle’ or ‘Maximum distance’

  Rasters

• With RGB band selection, you can define the number for the Red, Green and Blue band.

Contrast enhancement

• Single band gray . A single band gray can have ‘No stretch’, ‘Stretch to MinMax’, ‘Stretch and Clip to MinMax’ and also ‘Clip to MinMax’.
• Multi band color (byte/band) . Options are ‘No stretch’, ‘Stretch to MinMax’, ‘Stretch and Clip to MinMax’ and ‘Clip to MinMax’.
• Multi band color (>byte/band) . Options are ‘No stretch’, ‘Stretch to MinMax’, ‘Stretch and Clip to MinMax’ and ‘Clip to MinMax’.
• Limits (minimum/maximum) . Options are ‘Cumulative pixel count cut’, ‘Minimum/Maximum’, ‘Mean +/- standard deviation’.
• Cumulative pixel count cut limits
• Standard deviation multiplier

Debugging

• Map canvas refresh

Colors Settings¶

This menu allows you to add some custom color that you can find in each color dialog window of the renderers. You will see a set of predefined colors in the tab: you can delete or edit all of them. Moreover you can add the color you want and perform some copy and paste operations. Finally you can export the color set as a gpl file or import them.

Canvas and Legend Settings¶

Default map appearance (overridden by project properties)

• Define a Selection color and a Background color.

Layer legend

• Double click action in legend . You can either ‘Open layer properties’, ‘Open attribute table’ or ‘Open layer styling dock’ with the double click.
• The following Legend item styles are possible:
  • Capitalise layer names
  • Bold layer names
  • Bold group names
  • Display classification attribute names
  • Create raster icons (may be slow)
  • you can also set the WMS getLegendGraphic Resolution

Map tools Settings¶

This tab offers some options regarding the behavior of the Identify tool.

• Search radius for identifying and displaying map tips is a tolerance distance within which the identify tool will depict results as long as you click within this tolerance.
• Highlight color allows you to choose with which color should features being identified be highlighted.
• Buffer determines a buffer distance to be rendered from the outline of the identify highlight.
• Minimum width determines how thick should the outline of a highlighted object be.

Measure tool

• Define Rubberband color for measure tools
• Define Decimal places
• Keep base unit to not automatically convert large numbers (e.g., meters to kilometers)
• Preferred distance units (‘Meters’, ‘Kilometers’, ‘Feet’, ‘Yards’, ‘Miles’, ‘Nautical Miles’, ‘Degrees’ or ‘Map Units’ )
• Preferred area units (‘Square meters’, ‘Square kilometers’, ‘Square feet’, ‘Square yards’, ‘Square miles’, ‘Hectares’, ‘Acres’, ‘Square nautical miles’, ‘Square degrees” or ‘Map Units’)
• Preferred angle units (‘Degrees’, ‘Radians’, ‘Gon/gradians’, ‘Minutes of arc’, ‘Seconds of arc’ or ‘Turns/revolutions’)

Panning and zooming

• Define a Zoom factor for zoom tools or wheel mouse

Predefined scales

Here, you find a list of predefined scales. With the and buttons you can add or remove your personal scales. You can also import or export scales from/to a .XML file. Note that you still have the possibility to remove your changes and reset to the predefined list.

Composer Settings¶

Composition defaults

You can define the Default font used within the print composer.

Grid appearance

• Define the Grid style (‘Solid’, ‘Dots’, ‘Crosses’)
• Define the Grid color

Grid and guide defaults

• Define the Grid spacing
• Define the Grid offset for x and y
• Define the Snap tolerance

Composer Paths

• Define Path(s) to search for extra print templates: a list of folders with custom composer templates to use while creating new one.

Digitizing Settings¶

This tab helps you configure general settings when editing vector layer (attributes and geometry).

Feature creation

• Suppress attribute form pop-up after feature creation
• Reuse last entered attribute values
• Validate geometries. Editing complex lines and polygons with many nodes can result in very slow rendering. This is because the default validation procedures in QGIS can take a lot of time. To speed up rendering, it is possible to select GEOS geometry validation (starting from GEOS 3.3) or to switch it off. GEOS geometry validation is much faster, but the disadvantage is that only the first geometry problem will be reported.

Rubberband

• Define Rubberband Line width, Line color and Fill color
• Don’t update rubberband during node editing

Snapping

• Open snapping options in a dock window (QGIS restart required)
• Define Default snap mode (‘To vertex’, ‘To segment’, ‘To vertex and segment’, ‘Off’)
• Define Default snapping tolerance in map units or pixels
• Define the Search radius for vertex edits in map units or pixels

Vertex markers

• Show markers only for selected features
• Define vertex Marker style (‘Cross’ (default), ‘Semi transparent circle’ or ‘None’)
• Define vertex Marker size

Curve offset tool

The next 3 options refer to the ^{Offset Curve} tool in Advanced digitizing. Through the various settings, it is possible to influence the shape of the line offset. These options are possible starting from GEOS 3.3.

• Join style: ‘Round’, ‘Mitre’ or ‘Bevel’
• Quadrant segments
• Miter limit

GDAL Settings¶

GDAL is a data exchange library for raster files. In this tab, you can Edit create options and Edit Pyramids Options of the raster formats. You can define which GDAL driver is to be used for a raster format, as in some cases more than one GDAL driver is available.

CRS Settings¶

Default CRS for new projects

• Don’t enable ‘on the fly’ reprojection
• Automatically enable ‘on the fly’ reprojection if layers have different CRS
• Enable ‘on the fly’ reprojection by default
• Select a CRS and Always start new projects with this CRS

CRS for new layers

This area allows you to define the action to take when a new layer is created, or when a layer without a CRS is loaded.

• Prompt for CRS
• Use project CRS
• Use default CRS

Default datum transformations

• Ask for datum transformation when no default is defined

• With the ‘on-the-fly’ CRS transformation enabled and the above option checked, adding layers of different CRS opens the Select datum transformations dialog. This offers you to select the most appropriate transformation settings. Validating this dialog with the ‘Remember selection’ option checked populates the table under CRS ‣ Default datum transformations with information about ‘Source CRS’ and ‘Destination CRS’ as well as ‘Source datum transform’ and ‘Destination datum transform’. From now, QGIS automatically uses the selected datum transformation for further transformation between these two CRSs until you remove it from the list.

  You can use the button to add a datum transformation if you know its parameters (source and destination ellipsoids and the numbers from the transformation table). You then need to manually enter each setting.

Locale Settings¶

• Override system locale and Locale to use instead
• Information about active system locale

Authentication Settings¶

In the Authentication tab you can set authentication configurations and manage PKI certificates. See Authentication System for more details.

Network Tab¶

General

• Define WMS search address, default is http://geopole.org/wms/search?search=\%1\&type=rss
• Define Timeout for network requests (ms) - default is 60000
• Define Default expiration period for WMS Capabilities (hours) - default is 24
• Define Default expiration period for WMSC/WMTS tiles (hours) - default is 24
• Define Max retry in case of tile or feature request errors
• Define User-Agent

Proxy-settings in QGIS

Cache settings

Define the Directory and a Size for the cache.

• Use proxy for web access and define ‘Host’, ‘Port’, ‘User’, and ‘Password’.
• Set the Proxy type according to your needs.
  • Default Proxy: Proxy is determined based on the application proxy set using
  • Socks5Proxy: Generic proxy for any kind of connection. Supports TCP, UDP, binding to a port (incoming connections) and authentication.
  • HttpProxy: Implemented using the “CONNECT” command, supports only outgoing TCP connections; supports authentication.
  • HttpCachingProxy: Implemented using normal HTTP commands, it is useful only in the context of HTTP requests.
  • FtpCachingProxy: Implemented using an FTP proxy, it is useful only in the context of FTP requests.

Excluding some URLs can be added to the text box below the proxy settings (see Figure_Network_Tab).

If you need more detailed information about the different proxy settings, please refer to the manual of the underlying QT library documentation at http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/qnetworkproxy.html#ProxyType-enum

Variables Settings¶

The Variables tab lists all the variables available at the global-level.

It also allows the user to manage global-level variables. Click the button to add a new custom global-level variable. Likewise, select a custom global-level variable from the list and click the button to remove it.

More information about variables in the Variables section.

Advanced Settings¶

Depending on your OS, all the settings related to QGIS (UI, tools, data providers, default values, plugins options...) are saved:

• in a text file: $HOME/.config/QGIS/QGIS2.conf
• in the properties list file: $HOME/Library/Preferences/org.qgis.qgis.plist
• in the registry under: HKEY\CURRENT_USER\Software\QGIS\qgis

The Advanced tab offers you in a single place, regardless your OS, means to manage these settings through the Advanced Settings Editor. After you promise to be careful, the widget is populated with a tree of all QGIS settings, which you can directly edit.