Route map

General

• Disclaimer: you can only draw routes manually on this map, point by point.
• The direction of a route is indicated by color: the start is green, then the route progresses through blue and violet, to red at the end. In addition, the marker at the end of a route is square, while all other point markers are circular.
• Commands can be executed and map modes can be entered by pressing the keyboard key shown with them, or by clicking on their controls. For instance, press the a key to enter “Add points” mode.
• To view routes and move around the map without the possibility of accidentally editing the routes, enter “View” mode. The map always loads in this mode.

Map layers

• There are three map layers: a satellite/aerial layer (ESRI World Imagery), OpenStreetMap, and OpenTopoMap. Each can be shown or hidden via the layers menu at top right.
• The OSM and OTM layers’ opacity can be adjusted in the “View settings” dropdown, so that you can see multiple layers superimposed.

Saving and loading routes

• To save the current route, click “Permalink” (or press p). This saves the route info and the rest of the map’s state in the URL bar, and you can then bookmark the URL to view the same route later.
• If you have routes on the map and load a new route in the same browser tab, from a bookmark or pressing the browser “back” or “forward” buttons, etc., the previous routes are not removed from the map! This is so that you can use the previous routes and the newly loaded routes together to create new routes. If you don’t want the previous routes to stay on the map, click “Clear all routes” (or press x) before loading the new routes.

Selecting routes

• To edit a route, you generally need to select it. In the edit modes (all modes except View), the selected route is visually distinguished by all of its points having hollow-circle markers, and in View mode by thicker lines and larger start and end markers.
• Click on a currently-unselected route to select it. You can also click on the route’s distance display under the “Select route:” heading to select the route. (In “Add points” mode, if one route is selected already, click only on the lines of another route to select it. If you click on its start or end marker, the second route will be joined to the selected one — see below.) If you select a route on the map, its distance display will likewise be selected.
• To deselect a currently selected route, either select another route or select “none” under “Select routes:” (or press n). Also, in View mode you can click on a selected route to deselect it; in “Add points” mode, you can deselect the route by clicking on one of its corner points (colored blue); and in “Remove points” mode, by clicking on any of the route’s lines.

Creating and editing routes

• To start drawing a route, enter “Add points” mode and single-click anywhere on the map to draw new route points.
• To start drawing an additional route, enter “Add points” mode, deselect the selected route if needed, and then click on the map to start drawing the new route.
• By default, newly added points are appended to the end of the selected route. You can change this to prepending to the start of the route by clicking on the route’s start point (green circle) while the route is selected. The route will stay in prepend mode until you click on the route’s end point (red square) while the route is selected, at which it will return to append mode.
• To remove any point from a route, enter “Remove points” mode, select a route if needed, and click any point on the selected route to remove it.
• You can move any point on a selected route by dragging it while in “Add points,” “Remove points,” or “Cut route” mode.
• To insert a point between two existing route points, enter “Add points” mode, click on a route to select it if needed, and then click on the line between the two points. A new point will be added where you click, and you can then drag it to move it as needed.
• To join two routes together, enter “Add points” mode and select one of the routes. To append the other route to the selected route, click the other route’s start (green circle) marker. To prepend the other route, click its end (red square) marker.
• To cut a route into two, enter “Cut route” mode and select the route to cut if needed. Then, if you click on a point on the route, the route will be split into two at that point. If you click on a line on the route, that line will be deleted, leaving two disconnected routes.
• To reverse the direction of a route, select the route and click the “Reverse route” button (or press f as in “flip”).
• To delete a route, select the route and click the “Delete route” button (or press d). Similarly, to clear all routes off the map, click “Clear all routes” or press x.
• All route edits are undoable and redoable via the “Undo” and “Redo” controls.