General Tools¶

Configuring map themes¶

The ^{Manage Map Themes} drop-down button provides access to convenient shortcuts to manipulate visibility of the layers in the Layers panel:

• Show All Layers
• Hide All Layers
• Show Selected Layers
• Hide Selected Layers
• Hide Deselected Layers

Beyond the simple control of layer visibility, the ^{Manage Map Themes} menu allows you to configure Map Themes in the legend and switch from one map theme to another. A map theme is a snapshot of the current map legend that records:

• the layers set as visible in the Layers panel
• and for each visible layer:
  • the reference to the style applied to the layer
  • the visible classes of the style, ie the layer checked node items in the Layers panel. This applies to symbologies other than the single symbol rendering
  • the collapsed/expanded state of the layer node(s) and the group(s) it’s placed inside

To create a map theme:

1. Check a layer you want to show

2. Configure the layer properties (symbology, diagram, labels…) as usual

3. Expand the Style ‣ menu at the bottom and click on Add… to store the settings as a new style embedded in the project

   Note

   A map theme does not remember the current details of the properties: only a reference to the style name is saved, so whenever you apply modifications to the layer while this style is enabled (eg change the symbology rendering), the map theme is updated with new information.

4. Repeat the previous steps as necessary for the other layers

5. If applicable, expand or collapse groups or visible layer nodes in the Layers panel

6. Click on the ^{Manage Map Themes} button on top of the panel, and Add Theme…

7. Enter the map theme’s name and click OK

The new theme is listed in the lower part of the drop-down menu.

You can create as many map themes as you need: whenever the current combination in the map legend (visible layers, their active style, the map legend nodes) does not match any existing map theme contents as defined above, click on Add Theme… to create a new map theme, or use Replace Theme ‣ to update the current map theme. Use the Remove Current Theme button to delete the active theme.

Map themes are helpful to switch quickly between different preconfigured combinations: select a map theme in the list to restore its combination. All configured themes are also accessible in the print layout, allowing you to create different map items based on specific themes and independent of the current main canvas rendering (see Map item layers).

Overview of the context menu of the Layers panel¶

At the bottom of the toolbar, the main component of the Layers panel is the frame listing vector or raster layers added to the project, optionally organized in groups. Depending on the item selected in the panel, a right-click shows a dedicated set of options presented below.

Option	Vector Layer	Raster Layer	Group
Zoom to Layer/Group
Zoom to Selection
Show in Overview
Show Feature Count
Copy Layer/Group
Rename Layer/Group
Zoom to Native Resolution (100%)
Stretch Using Current Extent
Update SQL Layer…
Add Group
Duplicate Layer
Remove Layer/Group…
Move Out of Group
Move to Top
Check and all its Parents
Group Selected
Open Attribute Table
Toggle Editing
Current Edits ‣
Filter…
Set Layer Scale Visibility…
Zoom to Visible Scale
Set CRS ‣
Set Layer/Group CRS…
Set Project CRS from Layer
Set Group WMS Data…
Mutually Exclusive Group
Check and all its children (Ctrl-click)
Uncheck and all its children (Ctrl-click)
Make Permanent
Export ‣
Save As…
Save Features As…
Save Selected Features As…
Save As Layer Definition File…
Save As QGIS Layer Style File…
Styles ‣
Copy Style
Paste Style
Add…
Rename Current…
Properties…

Table: Context menu from Layers Panel items

For GRASS vector layers, ^{Toggle editing} is not available. See section Digitizing and editing a GRASS vector layer for information on editing GRASS vector layers.

Interact with groups and layers¶

Layers in the legend window can be organized into groups. There are two ways to do this:

1. Press the icon to add a new group. Type in a name for the group and press Enter. Now click on an existing layer and drag it onto the group.
2. Select some layers, right-click in the legend window and choose Group Selected. The selected layers will automatically be placed in a new group.

To move a layer out of a group, drag it out, or right-click on it and choose Move Out of Group: the layer is moved from the group and placed above it. Groups can also be nested inside other groups. If a layer is placed in a nested group, Move Out of Group will move the layer out of all nested groups.

To move a group or layer to the top of the layer panel, either drag it to the top, or choose Move to Top. If you use this option on a layer nested in a group, the layer is moved to the top in its current group.

The checkbox for a group will show or hide all the layers in the group with one click.

Enabling the Mutually Exclusive Group option means you can make a group have only one layer visible at the same time. Whenever a layer within the group is set visible the others will be toggled not visible.

It is possible to select more than one layer or group at the same time by holding down the Ctrl key while clicking additional layers. You can then move all selected layers to a new group at the same time.

You may also delete more than one layer or group at once by selecting several items with the Ctrl key and then pressing Ctrl+D: all selected layers or groups will be removed from the layers list.

Editing vector layer style¶

From the Layers panel, you have shortcuts to change the layer rendering quickly and easily. Right-click on a vector layer and select Styles ‣ in the list in order to:

• see the styles currently applied to the layer. If you defined many styles for the layer, you can switch from one to another and your layer rendering will automatically be updated on the map canvas.
• copy the current style, and when applicable, paste a copied style from another layer
• rename the current style, add a new style (which is actually a copy of the current one) or delete the current style (when multiple styles are available).

Whether the features in the vector layer all have the same unique symbol or they are classified (in which case the layer is displayed in a tree structure with each class as a sub-item), the following options are available at layer level or class level:

• Edit Symbol… to open the The Symbol Selector dialog to change any properties of the layer or feature symbol (symbol, size, color…). Double-clicking on a feature also opens the Symbol Selector dialog.
• Color Selector with a Color Wheel from which you can click a color to update the symbol fill color automatically. For convenience, Recent colors are available at the bottom of the color wheel.
• Show All Items and Hide All Items to toggle on or off the visibility of all the classes of features. This avoids (un)checking items one by one.

Scale Dependent Rendering¶

Scale-dependent rendering allows you to specify the minimum and maximum scales at which a layer (raster or vector) will be visible. To set scale-dependent rendering, open the Properties dialog by double-clicking on the layer in the legend. On the Rendering tab, tick Scale dependent visibility and enter the Minimum (exclusive) and Maximum (inclusive) scale values.

You can also activate scale dependent visibility on a layer from the Layers panel. Right-click on the layer and in the context menu, select Set Layer Scale Visibility.

The ^{Set to current canvas scale} button allow you to use the current map canvas scale as boundary of the range visibility.

Controlling Map Rendering¶

Map rendering can be controlled in various ways, as described below.

With the mouse wheel¶

You can press the mouse wheel to pan inside of the main window (on macOS, you may need to hold down the cmd key). You can roll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out on the map; the mouse cursor position will be the center of the zoomed area of interest. Holding down Ctrl while rolling the mouse wheel results in a finer zoom.

With the arrow keys¶

Panning the map is possible with the arrow keys. Place the mouse cursor inside the map area, and click on the arrow keys to pan up, down, left and right.

You can also use the space bar to cause mouse movements temporarily to pan the map. The PgUp and PgDown keys on your keyboard will cause the map display to zoom in or out following the zoom factor set. Pressing Ctrl++ or Ctrl+- also performs an immediate zoom in/out on the map canvas.

When certain map tools are active (Identify, Measure…), you can perform a zoom by holding down Shift and dragging a rectangle on the map to zoom to that area. This is not enabled for selection tools (since they use Shift for adding to selection) or edit tools.

Creating a Bookmark¶

To create a bookmark:

1. Zoom or pan to the area of interest.
2. Select the menu option View ‣ New Bookmark or press Ctrl+B. The Spatial Bookmarks panel opens with the newly created bookmark.
3. Enter a descriptive name for the bookmark (up to 255 characters).
4. Check the In Project box if you wish to save the bookmark in the project file.
5. Press Enter to add the bookmark or click elsewhere.

Note that you can have multiple bookmarks with the same name.

Working with Bookmarks¶

To use or manage bookmarks, select View ‣ Show Bookmarks or press Ctrl+7. The Spatial Bookmarks panel allows you to:

• Zoom to a Bookmark: select the desired bookmark and then click Zoom To Bookmark. You can also zoom to a bookmark by double-clicking on it.
• Delete a Bookmark: select the bookmark and click Delete Bookmark. Confirm your choice.
• Import or Export a bookmark: To share or transfer your bookmarks between computers you can use the Import/Export Bookmarks drop-down menu to export all bookmarks to an .xml file or import bookmarks from such a file.

You can also zoom to saved bookmarks by typing the bookmark name in the locator.

Grid¶

^Grid allows you to add a coordinate grid and coordinate annotations to the map canvas.

1. Select View ‣ Decorations ‣ Grid to open the dialog.

   

   The Grid Dialog

2. Tick Enable grid and set grid definitions according to the layers loaded in the map canvas.

3. Tick Draw annotations and set annotation definitions according to the layers loaded in the map canvas.

4. Click Apply to verify that it looks as expected or OK if you’re satisfied.

Copyright Label¶

^{Copyright label} adds a copyright label to the map using your choice of text.

1. Select View ‣ Decorations ‣ Copyright Label to open the dialog

   

   The Copyright Dialog

2. Make sure Enable Copyright Label is checked.

3. Enter the text you want to place on the map. You can include expressions (using the Insert an Expression button).

4. Choose the font for the label from the Font combo box. Set the font color and opacity by clicking the black arrow to the right of the font combo box.

5. Choose the placement of the label from the Placement combo box.

6. Refine the placement of the item by setting a horizontal and/or vertical Margin from Edge. These values can be in Millimeters or Pixels or set as a Percentage of the width or height of the map canvas.

7. You can change the color to apply

8. Click Apply to verify that it looks as expected or OK if you’re satisfied.

In the example above, which is the default, QGIS places a copyright symbol followed by the date in the bottom-right corner of the map canvas.

North Arrow¶

^{North Arrow} adds a north arrow on the map canvas, with options for style and placement.

To add a north arrow:

1. Select View ‣ Decorations ‣ North Arrow to open the dialog.

   

   The North Arrow Dialog

2. Make sure Enable north arrow is checked

3. Optionally change the color and size, or choose a custom SVG.

4. Optionally change the angle or choose Automatic to let QGIS determine the direction

5. Optionally choose the placement from the Placement combo box

6. Optionally refine the placement of the arrow by setting a horizontal and/or vertical Margin from (Canvas) Edge. These values can be in Millimeters or Pixels or set as a Percentage of the width or height of the map canvas.

7. Click Apply to verify that it looks as expected and OK if you’re satisfied.

Scale Bar¶

^{Scale Bar} adds a simple scale bar to the map canvas. You can control the style and placement, as well as the labelling of the bar.

QGIS only supports displaying the scale in the same units as your map frame. So, if the units of your project’s CRS are meters, you can’t create a scale bar in feet. Likewise, if you are using decimal degrees, you can’t create a scale bar to display distance in meters.

To add a scale bar:

1. Select View ‣ Decorations ‣ Scale Bar to open the dialog

   

   The Scale Bar Dialog

2. Make sure Enable scale bar is checked

3. Choose a style from the Scale bar style combo box

4. Select the Color of bar by choosing a fill color (default: black) and an outline color (default: white). The scale bar fill and outline can be made opaque by clicking on the down arrow to the right of the color input.

5. Select the font for the scale bar from the Font of bar combo box

6. Set the Size of bar

7. Optionally check Automatically snap to round number on resize to display easy-to-read values

8. Choose the placement from the Placement combo box

9. You can refine the placement of the item by setting a horizontal and/or vertical Margin from (Canvas) Edge. These values can be in Millimeters or Pixels or set as a Percentage of the width or height of the map canvas.

10. Click Apply to verify that it looks as expected or OK if you’re satisfied.

Layout Extents¶

^{Layout Extents} adds the extents of map item(s) in print layout(s) to the canvas. When enabled, the extents of all map items within all print layouts are shown using a lightly dotted border labeled with the name of the print layout and map item. You can control the style and labeling of the displayed layout extents. This decoration is useful when you are tweaking the positioning of map elements such as labels, and need to know the actual visible region of print layouts.

Example of layout extents displayed in a QGIS project with two print layouts. The print layout named ‘Sights’ contains two map items, while the other print layout contains one map item.

To add layout extent(s):

1. Select View ‣ Decorations ‣ Layout Extents to open the dialog

   

   The Layout Extents Dialog

2. Make sure Show layout extents is checked

3. Optionally change the symbol and labeling of the extents

4. Click Apply to verify that it looks as expected and OK if you’re satisfied

General information¶

QGIS provides four means of measuring geometries:

• interactive measurement tools
• measuring in the ^{Field Calculator}
• derived measurements in the Identifying Features tool
• the vector analysis tool: Vector ‣ Geometry Tools ‣ Export/Add Geometry Columns

Measuring works within projected coordinate systems (e.g., UTM) and unprojected data. The first three measuring tools behave equally to global project settings:

• Unlike most other GIS, the default measurement metric is ellipsoidal, using the ellipsoid defined in Project ‣ Properties… ‣ General. This is true both when geographic and projected coordinate systems are defined for the project.
• If you want to calculate the projected/planimetric area or distance using cartesian maths, the measurement ellipsoid has to be set to “None/Planimetric” (Project ‣ Properties… ‣ CRS). However, with a geographic (ie unprojected) CRS defined for the data and project, area and distance measurement will be ellipsoidal.

However, neither the identify tool nor the field calculator will transform your data to the project CRS before measuring. If you want to achieve this, you have to use the vector analysis tool: Vector ‣ Geometry Tools ‣ Add Geometry Attributes…. Here, measurement is planimetric, unless you choose the ellipsoidal measurement.

Measure length, areas and angles interactively¶

Click the icon in the Attribute toolbar to begin measurements. The down arrow near the icon switches between length, area or angle. The default unit used in the dialog is the one set in Project ‣ Properties… ‣ General menu.

All measuring modules use the snapping settings from the digitizing module (see section Setting the Snapping Tolerance and Search Radius). So, if you want to measure exactly along a line feature, or around a polygon feature, first set its layer snapping tolerance. Now, when using the measuring tools, each mouse click (within the tolerance setting) will snap to that layer.

By default, ^{Measure Line} measures real distances between given points according to a defined ellipsoid. The tool then allows you to click points on the map. Each segment length, as well as the total, shows up in the measure window. To stop measuring, click the right mouse button.

Note that you can use the drop-down list near the total to change the measurement units interactively while working with the measure tool (‘Meters’, ‘Kilometers’, ‘Feet’, ‘Yards’, ‘Miles’, ‘Nautical miles’, ‘Centimeters’, ‘Millimeters’, ‘Degrees’, ‘Map units’). This unit is retained for the widget until a new project is created or another project is opened.

The Info section in the dialog explains how calculations are made according to the CRS settings available.

Measure Distance

^{Measure Area}: Areas can also be measured. In the measure window, the accumulated area size appears. Right-click to stop drawing. The Info section is also available as well as the ability to switch between different area units (‘Square meters’, ‘Square kilometers’, ‘Square feet’, ‘Square yards’, ‘Square miles’, ‘Hectares’, ‘Acres’, ‘Square centimeters’, ‘Square millimeters’, ‘Square nautical miles’, ‘Square degrees’, ‘Map units’).

Measure Area

^{Measure Angle}: You can also measure angles. The cursor becomes cross-shaped. Click to draw the first segment of the angle you wish to measure, then move the cursor to draw the desired angle. The measurement is displayed in a pop-up dialog.

Measure Angle

Selecting manually on the map canvas¶

To select one or more features with the mouse, you can use one of the following tools:

• ^{Select Features by area or single click}
• ^{Select Features by Polygon}
• ^{Select Features by Freehand}
• ^{Select Features by Radius}

While using the Select Feature(s) tool, holding Shift or Ctrl toggles whether a feature is selected (ie either adds to the current selection or remove from it).

For the other tools, different behaviors can be performed by holding down:

• Shift: add features to the current selection
• Ctrl: substract features from the current selection
• Ctrl+Shift: intersect with current selection, ie only keep overlapping features from the current selection
• Alt: select features that are totally within the selection shape. Combined with Shift or Ctrl keys, you can add or substract features to/from the current selection.

Automatic selection¶

The other selection tools, also available from the Attribute table, perform a selection based on a feature’s attribute or its selection state (note that attribute table and map canvas show the same information, so if you select one feature in the attribute table, it will be selected on the map canvas too):

• ^{Select By Expression…} select features using expression dialog
• ^{Select Features By Value…} or press F3
• ^{Deselect Features from All Layers} or press Ctrl+Shift+A to deselect all selected features in all layers
• ^{Select All Features} or press Ctrl+A to select all features in the current layer
• ^{Invert Feature Selection} to invert the selection in the current layer

For example, if you want to find regions that are boroughs from regions.shp of the QGIS sample data, you can use the ^{Select features using an Expression} icon. Then, expand the Fields and Values group and choose the field that you want to query. Double-click the field ‘TYPE_2’ and also click All Unique in the panel that shows up. From the list, choose and double-click ‘Borough’. In the Expression field, write the following query:

"TYPE_2"  =  'Borough'

From the expression builder dialog, you can also use Function list ‣ Recent (Selection) to make a selection that you have used before. The dialog remembers the last 20 expressions used. See Expressions for more information and examples.

Select Features By Value¶

This selection tool opens the layer’s feature form allowing the user to choose which value to look for for each field, whether the search should be case-sensitive, and the operation that should be used. The tool has also autocompletes, automatically filling the search box with existing values.

Filter/Select features using form dialog

Alongside each field, there is a drop-down list with options to control the search behaviour:

Field search option	String	Numeric	Date
Exclude Field from the search
Equal to (=)
Not equal to (≠)
Greater than (>)
Less than (<)
Greater than or equal to (≥)
Less than or equal to (≤)
Between (inclusive)
Not between (inclusive)
Contains
Does not contain
Is missing (null)
Is not missing (not null)
Starts with
Ends with

For string comparisons, it is also possible to use the Case sensitive option.

After setting all search options, click Select features to select the matching features. The drop-down options are:

• Select features
• Add to current selection
• Filter current selection
• Remove from current current selection

You can also clear all search options using the Reset form button.

Once the conditions are set, you can also either:

• Zoom to features on the map canvas without the need of a preselection
• Flash features, highlighting the matching features. This is a handy way to identify a feature without selection or using the Identify tool. Note that the flash does not alter the map canvas extent and would be visible only if the feature is within the bounds of the current map canvas.

Using the Identify Features tool¶

QGIS offers several ways to identify features with the ^{Identify Features} tool:

• left click identifies features according to the selection mode and the selection mask set in the Identify Results panel
• right click with Identify Feature(s) as selection mode set in the Identify Results panel fetches all snapped features from all visible layers. This opens a context menu, allowing the user to choose more precisely the features to identify or the action to execute on them.
• right click with Identify Features by Polygon as selection mode in the Identify Results panel identifies the features that overlap with the chosen existing polygon, according to the selection mask set in the Identify Results panel

If you click on feature(s), the Identify Results dialog will list information about the feature(s) clicked. The default view is a tree view in which the first item is the name of the layer and its children are its identified feature(s). Each feature is described by the name of a field along with its value. This field is the one set in Layer Properties ‣ Display. All the other information about the feature follows.

Feature information¶

The Identify Results dialog can be customized to display custom fields, but by default it will display the following information:

• The feature display name;
• Actions: Actions can be added to the identify feature windows. The action is run by clicking on the action label. By default, only one action is added, namely View feature form for editing. You can define more actions in the layer’s properties dialog (see Actions Properties).
• Derived: This information is calculated or derived from other information. It includes:
  • general information about the feature’s geometry:
    • depending on the geometry type, the cartesian measurements of length, perimeter or area in the layer’s CRS units
    • depending on the geometry type and if an ellipsoid is set in the project properties dialog for Measurements, the ellipsoidal values of length, perimeter or area using the specified units
    • the count of geometry parts in the feature and the number of the part clicked
    • the count of vertices in the feature
  • coordinate information, using the project properties Coordinates display settings:
    • X and Y coordinate values of the point clicked
    • the number of the closest vertex to the point clicked
    • X and Y coordinate values of the closest vertex (and Z`/`M if applicable)
    • if you click on a curved segment, the radius of that section is also displayed.
• Data attributes: This is the list of attribute fields and values for the feature that has been clicked.

Identify Results dialog

The Identify Results dialog¶

At the top of the window, you have a handful of tools:

• ^{Open Form} of the current feature
• ^{Expand tree}
• ^{Collapse tree}
• ^{Expand New Results by Default} to define whether the next identified feature’s information should be collapsed or expanded
• ^{Clear Results}
• ^{Copy selected feature to clipboard}
• ^{Print selected HTML response}

• selection mode to use to fetch features to identify:

  • ^{Identify Features by area or single click}
  • ^{Identify Features by Polygon}
  • ^{Identify Features by Freehand}
  • ^{Identify Features by Radius}

  Note

  When using ^{Identify Features by Polygon}, you can right-click any existing polygon and use it to identify overlapping features in another layer.

At the bottom of the window are the Mode and View comboboxes. Mode defines from which layers features should be identified:

• Current layer: only features from the selected layer are identified. The layer need not be visible in the canvas.
• Top down, stop at first: only features from the upper visible layer.
• Top down: all features from the visible layers. The results are shown in the panel.
• Layer selection: opens a context menu where the user selects the layer to identify features from, similar to a right-click. Only the chosen features will be shown in the result panel.

The View can be set as Tree, Table or Graph. ‘Table’ and ‘Graph’ views can only be set for raster layers.

The identify tool allows you to Auto open form. If checked, each time a single feature is identified, a form opens showing its attributes. This is a handy way to quickly edit a feature’s attributes.

Other functions can be found in the context menu of the identified item. For example, from the context menu you can:

• View the feature form
• Zoom to feature
• Copy feature: Copy all feature geometry and attributes
• Toggle feature selection: Add identified feature to selection
• Copy attribute value: Copy only the value of the attribute that you click on
• Copy feature attributes: Copy the attributes of the feature
• Clear result: Remove results in the window
• Clear highlights: Remove features highlighted on the map
• Highlight all
• Highlight layer
• Activate layer: Choose a layer to be activated
• Layer properties: Open layer properties window
• Expand all
• Collapse all

Save as text file¶

Clicking the Style ‣ Save Style, you can save the style as a:

• QGIS layer style file (.qml)
• SLD file (.sld), only available for vector layers

Used on file-based format layers (.shp, .tab…), Save as Default generates a .qml file for the layer (with the same name). SLDs can be exported from any type of renderer – single symbol, categorized, graduated or rule-based – but when importing an SLD, either a single symbol or rule-based renderer is created. This means that categorized or graduated styles are converted to rule-based. If you want to preserve those renderers, you have to use the QML format. On the other hand, it can be very handy sometimes to have this easy way of converting styles to rule-based.

Save in database¶

Vector layer styles can also be stored in a database if the layer datasource is a database provider. Supported formats are PostGIS, GeoPackage, SpatiaLite, MSSQL and Oracle. The layer style is saved inside a table (named layer_styles) in the database. Click on Save Style… ‣ Save in database then fill in the dialog to define a style name, add a description, a .ui file if applicable and to check if the style should be the default style.

You can save several styles for a single table in the database. However, each table can have only one default style. Default styles can be saved in the layer database or in the QGIS local database, a SQLite database in the ~/.qgis2/ directory (where QGIS stores its local settings).

Save Style in database Dialog

Load style¶

When loading a layer in QGIS, if a default style already exists for this layer, QGIS loads the layer with this style. Also Style ‣ Restore Default looks for and loads that file, replacing the layer’s current style.

Style ‣ Load Style helps you apply any saved style to a layer. While text-file styles (.sld or .qml) can be applied to any layer whatever its format, loading styles stored in a database is only possible if the layer is from the same database or the style is stored in the QGIS local database.

The Database Styles Manager dialog displays a list of styles related to the layer found in the database and all the other styles saved in it, with name and description.

The color dialog¶

The Select Color dialog will appear whenever you click the icon to choose a color. The features of this dialog depend on the state of the Use native color chooser dialogs parameter checkbox in Settings ‣ Options… ‣ General. When checked, the color dialog used is the native one of the OS on which QGIS is running. Otherwise, the QGIS custom color chooser is used.

The custom color chooser dialog has four different tabs which allow you to select colors by ^{Color ramp}, ^{Color wheel}, ^{Color swatches} or ^{Color picker}. With the first two tabs, you can browse to all possible color combinations and apply your choice to the item.

Color selector ramp tab

In the ^{Color swatches} tab, you can choose from a list of color palettes (see Colors Settings for details). All but the Recent colors palette can be modified with the ^{Add current color} and ^{Remove selected color} buttons at the bottom of the frame.

The … button next to the palette combobox also offers several options to:

• copy, paste, import or export colors
• create, import or remove color palettes
• add the custom palette to the color selector widget with the Show in Color Buttons item (see figure_color_selector)

Color selector swatches tab

Another option is to use the ^{Color picker} which allows you to sample a color from under your mouse cursor at any part of the QGIS UI or even from another application: press the space bar while the tab is active, move the mouse over the desired color and click on it or press the space bar again. You can also click the Sample Color button to activate the picker.

Whatever method you use, the selected color is always described through color sliders for HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) and RGB (Red, Green, Blue) values. The color is also identifiable in HTML notation.

Modifying a color is as simple as clicking on the color wheel or ramp or on any of the color parameters sliders. You can adjust such parameters with the spinbox beside or by scrolling the mouse wheel over the corresponding slider. You can also type the color in HTML notation. Finally, there is an Opacity slider to set transparency level.

The dialog also provides a visual comparison between the Old color (applied to object) and the Current one (being selected). Using drag-and-drop or pressing the ^{Add color to swatch} button, any of these colors can be saved in a slot for easy access.

The color drop-down shortcut¶

Click the drop-down arrow to the right of the color button to display a widget for quick color selection. This shortcut provides access to:

• a color wheel to pick a color from
• an alpha slider to change color opacity
• the color palettes previously set to Show in Color Buttons
• copy the current color and paste it into another widget
• pick a color from anywhere on your computer display
• choose a color from the color selector dialog

Quick color selector menu

The color ramp drop-down shortcut¶

Color ramps are a practical way to apply a set of colors to one or many features. Their creation is described in the Color Ramp section. As for the colors, pressing the color ramp button opens the corresponding color ramp type dialog allowing you to change its properties.

Customizing a colorbrewer ramp

The drop-down menu to the right of the button gives quick access to a wider set of color ramps and options:

• Invert Color Ramp
• a preview of the gradient or catalog: cpt-city color ramps flagged as Favorites in the Style Manager dialog
• All Color Ramps to access the compatible color ramps database
• Create New Color Ramp… of any supported type that could be used in the current widget (note that this color ramp will not be available elsewhere unless you save it in the library)
• Edit Color Ramp…, the same as clicking the whole color ramp button
• Save Color Ramp…, to save the current color ramp with its customizations in the style library

Quick color ramp selection widget

The data defined override widget¶

Clicking the ^{Data defined override} icon shows the following entries:

• Description… that indicates if the option is enabled, which input is expected, the valid input type and the current definition. Hovering over the widget also pops up this information.
• Store data in the project: a button allowing the property to be stored using to the Auxiliary Storage Properties mechanism.
• Field type: an entry to select from the layer’s fields that match the valid input type.
• An entry to list the Variable available.
• Edit… button to create or edit the expression to apply, using the Expression String Builder dialog. To help you correctly fill in the expression, a reminder of the expected output’s format is provided in the dialog.
• Paste and Copy buttons.
• Clear button to remove the setup.
• For numeric and color properties, Assistant… to rescale how the feature data is applied to the property (more details below)

Using the data-defined assistant interface¶

When the ^{Data-defined override} button is associated with a numeric or color parameter, it has an Assistant… option that allows you to change how the data is applied to the parameter for each feature. The assistant allows you to:

• Define the Input data, ie:
  • the attribute to represent, using the Field listbox or the ^{Set column expression} function (see Expressions)
  • the range of values to represent: you can manually enter the values or use the ^{Fetch value range from layer} button to fill these fields automatically with the minimum and maximum values returned by the chosen attribute or the expression applied to your data
• Apply transform curve: by default, output values (see below for setting) are applied to input features following a linear scale. You can override this logic: enable the transform option, click on the graphic to add break point(s) and drag the point(s) to apply a custom distribution.
• Define the Output values: the options vary according to the parameter to define. You can globally set:
  • the minimum and maximum values to apply to the selected property (n case of a color setting, you’ll need to provide a color ramp)
  • the Scale method of representation which can be Flannery, Exponential, Surface or Radius
  • the Exponent to use for data scaling
  • the output value or color to represent features with NULL values

When compatible with the property, a live-update preview is displayed in the right-hand side of the dialog to help you control the value scaling.

The data-defined size assistant

The values presented in the varying size assistant above will set the size ‘Data-defined override’ with:

coalesce(scale_exp(Importance, 1, 20, 2, 10, 0.57), 1)