Identify

Owned by Lucy Minato (Deactivated)
Last updated: 03 Apr, 2023 by Allison Robertson
3 min read

Description of the tool

This tool allows you to click on your map to get details about a feature from the Active Layer.

How to use the tool

Prerequisite:

None

Steps:
  1. Click on the Identify tool.


  2. In the Map Window, click the feature of interest with the left mouse button. This will open the Identify window, which will show details of the feature that you clicked on.



  3. To Identify more than one feature at once, hold the left mouse button down in the Map Window and drag a circle to define a search area. The circular search area will be displayed interactively as you drag the mouse. Once you have defined your area of interest, release the mouse button and the Identify window will open with details of all the features that were found in the circular search area.
  4. .



    The Identify window lists all the map features from the Active Layer that have been found in the search area. The number of features found is reported at the top of the Identify window. 

  5. Optionally, a copy of these details may be obtained by using the Export button. This option lets you export the data shown in the Identify window to either CSV or Excel format. The exported file is available for opening once you select the export file type.



  6. Clicking on a row in the Identify Window will cause the corresponding feature to be highlighted in the Map Window. The following Identify window buttons will then be enabled :  Pan, Zoom, Remove and Refine. 



    • Pan - Changes the map display to have the selected feature from the Data Grid at the centre of the Map Window (this does not change the scale of the map).
    • Zoom - Zooms in or out so that the whole of the selected feature from the Data Grid is displayed in the Map Window (the scale of the map will change to accommodate the size of the highlighted feature). 
    • Remove - The selected feature is removed from the listing in the Data Grid.
    • Refine - All but the selected features will be removed from the listing in the Data Grid. 

Optionally the <Shift> or <Ctrl> keys may be used to highlight more than one feature/row. 

7. The Identify window Filter option may be used to reduce the number of rows displayed in the Identify window, based on a field attribute constraint . 


 

To use the Filter capability, click the Filter button and chose the field that you wish to use to constrain the displayed rows , then type in the value of this field in the text box; Click the magnifying glass button to apply the filter. The list of displayed rows will then be reduced to match the filter criteria.



To clear the filter, press the 'x' to the right of the Filter text box. 

TIP:

You can make the following changes to the appearance of the Identify window:

  • Sort columns - Click on the column names to sort the data rows by that column value. 
  • Turn columns off - Click on the down arrow at the right end of the column to access the Columns option; This allows columns to be turned on or off.
  • Rearrange column order - Click and hold the left mouse button on the column name to drag the column to a new column location.
  • Resize column - Click on the separator between two column names and drag to make the column wider or narrower.