Panels and settings
The sidebar on the right has three tabs: Selection, Layers and World. The top bar has what applies to the whole world.
Top bar
- Worlds: back to the list of your worlds.
- The world's name, with a tick once everything is saved, a pulsing dot while saving, and a warning if a save didn't go through.
- 2D / 3D: edit on the flat map or on the 3D one (see Edit in 3D).
- Undo, redo, and export (download the world as a file).
- Show in 3D: opens the world in the 3D map in a new tab, as visitors would see it.
- Share: who can see the world, and its link (worlds in your account only).
Selection
The settings of the selected shape: its name, and everything that kind of shape has, from a forest's density to a city's style. Lines and outlines also show their length or size in kilometres, and have two buttons to tidy them:
- Smooth rounds off sharp corners.
- Simplify takes out points that aren't needed, handy after drawing freehand.
Coastlines can get a Strip along the coast: a zone of any kind following the shore, as wide as you like. Zones can get Add a zone around them, such as a ring of hills round a mountain area.
With several shapes selected, the panel moves them as one (turn, resize, mirror), combines zones, or adds zones round them.
Layers
Every shape in the world, top to bottom. Among shapes of one kind (two zones, say), the one higher up lies over the one below.
- Click a layer to select it; drag layers to change their order.
- The eye hides a layer while you edit. It stays in the world, so Show in 3D and shared links still show it.
- Groups keep layers together, like folders: select some layers and press ⌘/Ctrl+G. Click a group to select everything in it, double-click to rename it, fold it shut, hide it, or ungroup it (the layers stay).
World
The world
- Name of the world.
- Width and Height of the map, in map pixels.
- Scale: how many kilometres one map pixel stands for. It sets the scale bar and the lengths shown in the Selection tab; at the start, a world is about the size of Europe.
- Snow line: the height above which the ground and mountainsides lie under snow, or none at all.
Life in 3D
Traffic on the roads and seas: none, light or busy. Wagons, riders, walkers and camel caravans travel between towns, trade ships sail between ports and fishing boats potter about; by night they carry lanterns.
Map image
An image to trace over, such as a map you drew on paper. See Trace a map you already have.
Earlier versions
For worlds in your account: the world as it was, kept every ten minutes or so while you work, to bring one back. See Save, share and go back.