Drawing on the Map

Additional information can be drawn on the map using the Draw toolbar. This toolbar is displayed when the Show Draw Toolbar checkbox is checked on the View menu.

When YAAC is in drawing mode, the mouse is reserved for drawing input; the specific function depends on which of the drawing mode toolbar buttons (select, draw line, draw rectangle, draw oval, or draw text) is currently selected. To pan and zoom the map behind the drawing, you will need to use the same keyboard keys that normally pan and zoom the map:

• ↑ - pan up (north) one-tenth of the map height
• ↓ - pan down (south) one-tenth of the map height
• ← - pan left (west) one-tenth of the map width
• → - pan right (east) one-tenth of the map width
• Home - pan so the current location of YAAC is the center of the map
• + - zoom in twice as close as the current zoom level
• - - zoom out twice as far as the current zoom level
• Page Up - pan up (north) 90% of the map height
• Page Down - pan down (south) 90% of the map height

Note that the plus and minus keys cannot be used for zooming when in draw text mode; instead, they will be included in the typed text. In addition, pressing the Esc key will stop whatever drawing element you are drawing. For example, when in draw line mode, a line will no longer be attached to the mouse cursor from the last clicked point, and a new click will start a new line, rather than extending the previous line.

The buttons on the toolbar are:

• Select a drawn object so its attributes can be changed or it can be deleted.
• Draw a line or polyline.
• Draw an axis-aligned rectangle.
• Draw a circle or oval.
• Change the attributes of the current drawn object (line thickness, line stroking style, color, transparency).
• Draw a text label.
• Load a saved set of drawn objects from a disk file onto the map.
• Save the current set of drawn objects to a disk file.

  The load and save formats include:

  • a proprietary binary format used only by YAAC
  • CSV file formats, both latitude-then-longitude and longitude-then-latitude. This format can only save polylines. The former is compatible with the CSV GPS logging format. If you receive an out-of-range latitude error loading in this format, you probably selected the incorrect field ordering for the file (latitude before longitude vs. longitude before latitude).
  • Google KML. This format can only save polylines.

  Loading can additionally read GPX (GPS eXchange XML format) files. Drawing loading can also be done from the main YAAC menubar with the File->Load->Drawing menu choice.

• Load an ESRI shapefile of drawable objects into the collection of drawn objects, using the current drawing style.
• Remove the toolbar (same as unchecking the View menu entry).