3. Conventions

This section describes the uniform styles that will be used throughout this manual.

3.1. GUI Conventions

The GUI convention styles are intended to mimic the appearance of the GUI. In general, a style will reflect the non-hover appearance, so a user can visually scan the GUI to find something that looks like the instruction in the manual.

  • Menu Options: Layer ▶ Add a Raster Layer or Settings ▶ Toolbars ▶ Digitizing

  • Tool: addRasterLayer Add a Raster Layer

  • Button : Save as Default

  • Dialog Box Title: Layer Properties

  • Tab: General

  • Checkbox: checkbox Render

  • Radio Button: radioButtonOn Postgis SRID radioButtonOff EPSG ID

  • Select a number: selectNumber

  • Select a string: selectString

  • Browse for a file: …

  • Select a color: selectColor

  • Slider: slider

  • Input Text: inputText

A shadow indicates a clickable GUI component.

3.2. Text or Keyboard Conventions

This manual also includes styles related to text, keyboard commands and coding to indicate different entities, such as classes or methods. These styles do not correspond to the actual appearance of any text or coding within QGIS.

  • Hyperlinks: https://qgis.org

  • Keystroke Combinations: Press Ctrl+B, meaning press and hold the Ctrl key and then press the B key.

  • Name of a File: lakes.shp

  • Name of a Class: NewLayer

  • Method: classFactory

  • Server: myhost.de

  • User Text: qgis --help

Lines of code are indicated by a fixed-width font:

PROJCS["NAD_1927_Albers",
  GEOGCS["GCS_North_American_1927",

3.3. Platform-specific instructions

GUI sequences and small amounts of text may be formatted inline: Click nix win File osx QGIS ▶ Quit to close QGIS. This indicates that on Linux, Unix and Windows platforms, you should click the File menu first, then Quit, while on macOS platforms, you should click the QGIS menu first, then Quit.

Larger amounts of text may be formatted as a list:

  • nix Do this

  • win Do that

  • osx Or do that

or as paragraphs:

nix osx Do this and this and this. Then do this and this and this, and this and this and this, and this and this and this.

win Do that. Then do that and that and that, and that and that and that, and that and that and that, and that and that.

Screenshots that appear throughout the user guide have been created on different platforms.