Map Controls & Tools¶

The Controls menu toggles two kinds of on-map helpers: the built-in MapLibre map controls, and the component panels that add tools like Measure and Bookmark. A check mark next to an item means it is currently shown.

Map controls¶

These are the standard MapLibre controls that sit in the map corners:

Control	Description
Navigation	Zoom in/out and a compass to reset bearing.
Fullscreen	Expand the map to fill the screen.
Geolocate	Center the map on your current location.
Globe	Switch between the flat map and a 3D globe projection.
Terrain	Toggle terrain (3D elevation) rendering.
Scale	Show a scale bar.
Attribution	Show data attributions.
MapLibre logo	Show or hide the MapLibre logo.

Component tools¶

These are interactive panels provided by the MapLibre components plugin:

Tool	Description
Search	Search for places by name and fly to the result.
Colorbar	Display a continuous color scale for raster values.
Legend	Show a legend describing the layers on the map.
HTML	Display custom HTML content in an on-map panel.
Measure	Measure distances and areas interactively.
Bookmark	Save named map views and jump back to them.
Minimap	Show an overview map of the current extent.
View State	Read and edit the exact center, zoom, bearing, and pitch.

The Print Layout composer lives under the Project menu.

Control position

Plugin-backed controls can be positioned in any map corner. For plugins that support it, set the corner from the Plugins menu (top left, top right, bottom left, or bottom right).

Camera, overlay, and recording tools¶

The Controls menu also carries tools that move the camera, drape live data over the map, or capture what you see:

Tool	Description
Sun	Simulate the sun's position and the day/night terminator for any date and time.
Weather	Overlay near-realtime Clouds (NASA satellite imagery, animated day by day) and Precipitation (RainViewer radar, animated over roughly the last two hours).
Gridlines	Draw a coordinate grid with edge labels, including a UTM easting/northing mode.
Spinning Globe	Slowly rotate the globe, optionally bounded to a region.
Route Animation	Animate a marker along a line layer with play/pause, speed, a trail, and camera follow.
Flight Simulator	Fly over terrain and 3D layers with continuous keyboard controls.
Atmospheric Effects	Render a deep-space backdrop, starfield, comets, and an atmospheric halo at low zoom.
Directions	Click the map to add waypoints and get a route. Waypoints are sent to the public OSRM demo server.
Reverse Geocode	Click the map to look up an address at those coordinates through the configured geocoding provider.
Record Map Tour...	Capture an animated keyframe tour to video, with per-keyframe recapture, hold and transition durations, and a saveable tour setup.
Record Video...	Record the map canvas, or a drawn bounding box, to a video file, optionally burning in on-map HTML, legend, and colorbar panels.

Some tools call external services

Directions and Reverse Geocode send your coordinates to a third-party service — the OSRM demo server and your configured geocoding provider. Weather fetches overlay imagery from NASA and RainViewer. The rest of the table runs locally against tiles the map already fetches.

Annotations and the Elements panel¶

The annotation tools draw on top of the map: Text, Arrow, Rectangle highlight, Ellipse highlight, Freehand highlight, Pin marker, Sticky note, and Placed image. Each has a color, and the stroked shapes (Arrow, Rectangle, Ellipse, and Freehand) also honor the line width. You can delete the last annotation or clear them all.

Annotations are saved with the project, and the Elements panel lists them so you can find and manage each one instead of hunting for it on the canvas. Most elements are anchored At Point — a geographic coordinate they move with. Placed image additionally offers Pinned to Extent, which stretches it across a bounding box so it scales with the view.

Review comments¶

Comments are anchored notes for review and feedback, kept separate from annotations because they are a conversation rather than map decoration.

Activate the comment tool from the Comments panel on the right sidebar, then click the map to drop a pin and write the note. GeoLibre asks for your name once and remembers it.
Each pin opens a thread you can reply to, resolve, reopen, or delete.
Filter the panel by Open, Resolved, or All. Resolved pins are hidden from the map while the Open filter is active.
In a live collaboration session, adding, replying, resolving, and deleting all sync to the other participants.

Comments are stored in the .geolibre.json file, so they travel with a shared or saved project even when no session is running.

GPS tracking¶

Controls → GPS Tracking... follows a live position on the map, records a track log, and can digitize new features straight from the feed. Pick one of two entries under Position source:

This device — the browser or OS geolocation API. This is the default and needs no extra hardware.
NMEA receiver (serial or Bluetooth) — an external GPS/GNSS receiver, for survey-grade or high-rate positions. Choose a baud rate and use Connect serial or Connect Bluetooth; the dialog then reports the device name and a running count of parsed sentences and fixes.

NMEA needs a Chromium browser

Reading a receiver uses the Web Serial and Web Bluetooth APIs, which Chromium browsers such as Chrome and Edge provide but Firefox and Safari do not. Most Bluetooth GPS receivers speak classic Bluetooth rather than Bluetooth Low Energy: pair those in your operating system's settings and they appear here as a serial port. Use Connect Bluetooth only for Bluetooth Low Energy receivers.

Controls → Field Collection... is the related tool for capturing observations against a custom form. See Features.

Pan: drag the map, or use the arrow keys while the map has focus.
Zoom: scroll wheel, pinch, the navigation control, or the + / - keys.
Rotate: hold the right mouse button and drag, use the compass, or Shift + ← / →.
Tilt: hold Ctrl/Cmd and drag to tilt the map into a perspective view, or Shift + ↑ / ↓.
Reset the view: press N for north up, U for a top-down view, or R to reset both pitch and bearing. See the interface guide for the full shortcut list.