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SurView TutorialASX legend windows |
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![]() ASX legend menu |
After the map is drawn, several legend windows may appear on top of the map. The data preparer decides which layers will have legend windows and whether they are visible or not. Legend windows are usually suppressed if a layer is drawn in a single colour (i.e. rivers all drawn blue).
Legend windows that are visible may be closed or minimized.
Some legend windows may be initially hidden. All legend windows
are enumerated in the View | Legends menu and can be toggled
on and off with those menu items. If you can't find a legend window
and it's not in the menu, then it is probably unnecessary and has
been suppressed by the data preparer.
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Legend windows can be moved around the screen like any other window, by dragging on the caption area at the top. Legend windows are special windows and can also be moved by dragging on any part of the interior window surface (i.e. anywhere in the legend) with the left mouse button held down. This allows you to push the window almost offscreen and still be able to move it back by dragging any part of it.
Of course, if it's really in the way, you can minimize or close the window too.
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Each legend window can be resized and placed anywhere on the map. Legend windows are very smart and can resize the contents to match the size of the window.
If you make the window wider or narrower, all you do is show more or less of the legend. No resizing occurs.
If you make the window taller or shorter, the contents are resized to fit. Everything inside the window is scaled relative to the height of the cell. So if the window is made taller, the cell height increases and so does the height of the cell and the text. That increases the width of the legend, so the window will have to made wider to see it all.
![]() initial legend |
![]() wider shows more |
![]() taller scales up |
![]() shorter scales down |
There are many other aspects of the legend appearance that can be changed, as discussed in the next section.
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![]() setup cursor in legend window |
This is a complex dialog box, but it is very powerful and allows you to fully customize the appearance of the legend. The main thing to remember is that every measurement is expressed in terms of the height of the legend cell.
Cells
The cell width is expressed in terms of the cell height. The default width
is 2X the cell height. The red areas of the pictogram represent the horizontal
(between the cell & the cell label) and vertical distances between the cells.
The cell height is expressed in terms of the cell height, the default being half
the cell height.
By default, a border is drawn around each cell. You can suppress this border.
By default, the cell labels are drawn on the right of the cell. You can put the labels inside the cell, but you'll probably have to make the cells wider (perhaps 10X the height) to accommodate the labels. It's common to set the cell spacing to 0 when putting the labels inside the cells.
Margins
There are 2 titles for the legend (one on top and one on bottom).
Note that data preparer may not have specified a bottom title. All
of the dimensions here are expressed in terms of the cell height:
Labels
A typical legend LUT (lookup table) looks something like this:
Key | Description |
---|---|
1100 | Stratigraphic, defined, undefined, undefined |
2100 | Intrusive, defined, undefined, undefined |
4100 | Fault, defined, undefined, undefined |
... | ... |
The Labels option allows you to label the legend cells with the Key (usually short) or the Description (usually longer). The Description is the default label. A change may not be noticeable if the label is set to Key, because the key & description in the LUT may be the same.
Layout
This is the best part :) The matrix of legend cells is laid out
automatically, according to the dimensions of the cells & margins.
First the cell height is calculated from the height of the legend
window and the height of the cells, height of the titles and margins.
All other dimensions are then computed relative to the cell height.
There are 3 distinct styles which can be achieved:
Style | Settings |
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one column | Uncheck the Cells per column option
![]() 1 column |
one row | This is not a good layout if there are more than ~20 legend cells.
![]() 1 row |
multi-row, multi-column | Check the Cells per column option and set the no. of cells per column (default 10) |
If the layout is changed, the legend window will usually require
manual resizing to adjust to the new configuration.
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![]() query cursor in legend window |
As the cursor floats over the legend cells, it may change to a
query cursor .
If so, you can right click on that legend cell to obtain further information.
The action might display a topic from a HLP file, or it might display
an HTML document, depending on how the data preparer has set up
the data.
If the legend has been configured with more than one pick action, a popup menu may appear, from which a selection can be made. If the cursor shows only a simple arrow (default cursor), there is no information for that cell and a right click will be echoed as a 'beep'.
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![]() theme selection |
The data preparer may have configured the data with more than one
legend themes. A theme is a LUT (lookup table) which is keyed to
one particular field in the database, i.e. age, lithological unit,
terrane, rock type etc. If so, the Theme button in the
legend configuration dialog box will be enabled. Clicking this button
will display a list of predefined themes, from which a selection can
be made. The current theme is shown 'greyed out'.
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![]() fixed attribute dialog box |
SHP files can be configured to display 3 attributes:
Each of these can be either a fixed attribute (non-lookup, i.e. a red solid line for all features) or it can be set to search a lookup table for a colour and/or style according to a particular attribute in the data. If a LUT is used, the attributes are accessed through the legend window (right click on the background).
The fixed attributes can be accessed by clicking the Fixed button in the legend configuration dialog box or by using the Edit | Display Attributes dialog box. Either way, the same dialog box is presented.
If the file is drawn only with fixed attributes (i.e. draw all rivers in blue),
then there is no legend and the only way to access the fixed attributes is with
the Edit | Display Attributes dialog box.
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![]() colour editor |
The colours in the legend can be edited by clicking the Colours button in the legend window configuration dialog box. This brings up a dialog box that allows you to edit the colours. Select 1 or more cells and then select a colour from the palette.
Palette window
The palette window can be resized to provide you with larger sample of the colour.
Clicking on the system menu in the upper left corner of the palette window will drop
down a list of available colour tables. You can also load an external *.RGB file.
Note that SurView doesn't really care which colour table or file provided the
colour - it only wants to know the RGB(r,g,b) colour value.
RGB or CMY
As you float over the palette window, the RGB(r,g,b) value of the colour below
the cursor is displayed in the caption window. You can display the CMY(c,m,y) value
by choosing that option from the system menu of the palette window.
Swap
If you select a group of 2 or more legend items from the list,
the Swap button will switch the colours. For example, if the
selected items are red, green, blue & yellow, after clicking
Swap, the items will be yellow, blue, green & red. The
group of colours does not have to be contiguous.
Colour ramp generator
If more than 2 items are selected, the Colour ramp generator
will be enabled and can be selected. Select Set top colour
and pick a colour from the palette window. Then select Set bottom colour
and pick another colour from the palette window. Then click
Apply colour ramp to selected items and the colours will
be generated and applied to the selected items.
Copy
Copy will copy the table of colours and item names to the clipboard
whereupon the list may be copied into an application for Notepad,
perhaps for printing.
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![]() legend subset |
By default, SurView plots all polygons or lines from the SHP file, according to the colours found in the LUT (lookup table). A subset of the features may be plotted, if desired.
Click Subset from the legend window configuration dialog
box. Initially, all features in the listbox are selected. Select
just the features that are to be plotted and click Ok.
Invert
Clicking Invert will complement the current selection set -
all selected items will be de-selected and all unselected items
will be selected.
![]() text select |
![]() mask type |
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The legend windows are drawn in the same location, size and shape relative to the map, as they are on the screen (but they won't show in the cartoon image in the printing dialog box). If there isn't a good unused open area in which to place the legend, you can move the map over to the side using the zoom/pan cursor and then resize and locate the legend in a blank area. Keep in mind that the legend can be made into a single column and positioned on the side of the map, a good configuration for printing.
No, you can't print the legend on a separate piece of paper, but it's on my 'to do' list.
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