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Attribute Table


In GIS, the Attribute Table associated to a vector layer is a table that stores tabular information related to the layer. The columns of the table are called fields and the rows are called records. Each record of the attribute table corresponds to a feature geometry of the layer. This relation allows to find records in the table (information) by selecting features on the map and viceversa.
In MapStore, through the button in Layers Toolbar it is possible to access the Attribute table:

Accessing this panel the user can perform the following main operations:

  • Edit records through the button

  • Filter records in Attribute Table in different ways as described in the Set filter section below

  • Open the Advanced Search tool through the button

  • Activate the filter by the current viewport, through the button

  • Activate the filtering capabilities by clicking on map, through button

  • Using the quick filter by attribute

  • Download the grid data through the button

  • Create Widgets through the button

  • Customize the attribute table display through the button

  • Zoom to features through the button available on each record or zoom to the page max extent through the button (available only if the virtual scrolling is disabled, it is enabled by default in MapStore).

Warning

When GeoServer is set to strict CITE compliance for WFS (by default), the feature grid do not work correctly. This is because MapStore uses by default WFS 1.1.0 with startIndex/maxFeatures. This is not strict compliant with WFS 1.1.0 (GeoServer supports it but the request in strict mode is invalid). To solve it un-check the CITE compliance checkbox in the "WFS" page of GeoServer "Services" configurations using the GeoServer web interface

Manage records

The basic Web Feature Service allows querying and retrieval of features. Through Transactional Web Feature Services (WFS-T) MapStore allows creation, deletion, and updating of features.

Warning

By default editing functionalities are available only for MapStore Admin users. Other users can use these tools only if explicitly configured in the plugin configuration (see the APIs documentation for more details). In any case, the user must have editing rights on the layer to edit it (see for example the GeoServer Security Settings).

The Edit mode can be reached from the button in Attribute Table panel, allowing to menage only the layer which the table refers to:

Note

When the Edit mode is enabled only the editing functionalities are available to the user, all other tools are deactivated.

By default, in Edit mode, you can see a panel like that following:

Through the Quit edit mode button you can stop the editing session to make the other functionalities available again.

Create new features

Once the Edit mode is enabled it is possible to create a new feature by clicking on the Add New Feature button . After clicking on it the user can fill out the fields and edit the geometry of the new feature:

To edit attributes MapStore provides some input fields based on the attribute type, that forces the user to insert a valid value. If the attribute is of type text, MapStore will also show a dropdown menu with the list of the existing values for that attribute to allow a quick selection.

Note

the dropdown menu is available only if the server provides the WPS process gs:PagedUnique

The Missing geometry exclamation point in the second column of the Attribute Table means that the feature doesn't have a geometry yet. It's possible to add it later or draw it on the map before saving:

In order to save the changes made until now, there's the button, whereas to undo the changes there's the button.
Once a new record is created, it's possible to draw a geometry for it, by clicking on the button that appears once that feature is selected. The process of drawing a new geometry is a little different depending on the layer type:

  • For Polygons and Multipolygons layers, each click on the map add a new vertex (the minimum is 3). Once the vertex are set, it is possible to change the shape by creating new vertices or dragging the existing ones:
  • For Lines and Multilines layers the shape drawing function works more or less in the same way. The only difference is that you need at least two vertices to draw a line and not three like for polygons:
  • For Points layers a point is drawn for each click on the map

The user is always allowed to delete the drawn shape through the button.

Create new geometry with Snapping

To fine tune the vertex position while editing or creating a new feature geometry, it is possible to leverage on the Snapping functionality. Through this function it is possible to snap to other vertices of features belonging to the same layer or to others while editing a feature.

The tool provides the ability to tune the snapping function so that the user can:

  • Choose one of the visible map layers in TOC to be used for the snapping
  • Choose where to snap the layer, enabling/disabling the Edge or/and the Vertex

  • Set Tolerance for considering the pointer close enough to a segment or vertex for snapping

  • Choose the Loading strategy of features to snap with by choosing one of the available options from the dropdown menu. Available options are:

  • bbox: only features in the current viewport are loaded

  • all: all layer features are loaded

Note

The snapping functionality is by default set to work with the same layer in editing mode. By default, the Edge and the Vertex are enabled, the Tolerance is set to 10 pixel and the Loading strategy is set to bbox.

Editing and removing existing features

In order to edit an existing feature, it is necessary to switch the Attribute Table in editing mode by clicking the Edit mode button. If the goal is to edit the Attribute Table records, the user can simply select them and type the desired value into the input field. However, it is also possible to modify the geometry associated with a record by editing it on the map (adding or changing its vertices).

Note

It is possible to edit the value of an attribute for multiple records at once by selecting the corresponding cell in the table and dragging the content onto the multiple cells, as follows:

With a click on Save changes these changes will be persistent.
In Edit mode, the user can also delete some features by selecting them in the table and clicking on the button.

Set filters

In the Attribute table it is possible to apply filters in four ways (as explained in the Filtering layers section):

Those filters, once applied, can be visible on the map by enabling the button.

Download the grid data

Form the Attribute table it is also possible to download the grid data through the button. The following window opens:

From this window it is possible to set:

  • The File Format (GML2, Shapefile, GeoJSON, KML, CSW, GML3.1 or GML3.2)

  • The Spatial Reference System (by default Native or WGS84)

With a click on the button and the browser will download the file.

Customize Attribute table display

MapStore allows the user to customize the fields displayed in Attribute table mainly in two way:

  • Ordering the records in alphabetic order (if it's a text field) or from the minimum to the maximum value and viceversa (if it's a numerical field):
  • Deciding which columns to show and which to hide through the button: