The map

An app opens as a map with a rail of tools down the left side and, next to it, the panel of the tool you picked. Every icon on the rail says its name when you hover over it. On a short screen the tools that do not fit are under More tools (⋯) at the foot of the list, in the same order, each with its name.

#The tools

Tool	What it does
Layers	Switch layers on and off, see their legend, open a layer's options
Search	Find features by the text in their attributes — see Finding and reading data
Identify	Read the attributes of what you click on the map
Selection	Select features by a point, a rectangle, a polygon, their attributes, or their relation to another layer
Attribute table	The table of a layer's features
Measure	Distances and areas, several at once, and the size of a feature you click — see Measuring, drawing and sharing
Draw	Draw and save shapes and labels, and share them
Edit features	Change the app's data — shown only to editors, where the app allows it (Layers and editing)
Coordinate grid	Draws a labelled grid in the chosen coordinate system
Compare	Slide a divider across the map to compare a layer, or two layers, with what is under them
Bookmarks	Save the current view and go back to saved ones
Print	A map sheet as a PDF or PNG, at a true scale — see Printing
Share	A link to this view
Fly	Plan drone surveys over the app and make orthophotos — signed in only; see Drone flights and orthophotos
3D	The site's 3D models, one per survey, each opening in a new tab (drag to turn it, scroll to zoom) — shown only in apps that have them

At the bottom of the rail: Basemap (when the app offers more than one — Map, Light, Satellite), Help, and the appearance button.

Close the tool (×) at the top of a tool's panel puts the tool down and shows the layer list again: clicks on the map no longer go to the tool, a shape not yet finished and a measurement are cleared, and a selection or a drawing not yet saved is kept for when you come back. Closing Compare ends the comparison. Escape does the same — once nothing nearer takes it: an open menu or window closes first, a feature's card on the map closes first, in Draw a shape you picked up is put down first, and a shape or a measurement you have started but not finished is cancelled first — the tool stays open for the next one, and a second Escape closes it. Hide the panel, at the top of the layer list, gives the map the whole width; Show the panel brings it back. On a phone, Hide the panel is there with every tool, which keeps working while its sheet is lowered.

If the map is slow while you share your screen (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams), turn on Lighter map under the map button at the bottom of the rail: the map is drawn with fewer pixels and without fades, and your browser remembers the choice.

#Layers

In Layers, tick a layer to show it; click its name to do the same. Layers can be grouped in folders, shown as headings with a folder mark and what they hold indented under them: a folder's box switches everything in it, and its arrow opens or closes it. A layer with several classes has a legend you can open under it.

The … button of a folder (Folder options) offers:

• Zoom to folder — the data of every layer in the folder that you can see, on screen together;
• Opacity — one slider for all of its layers, folders inside it included. Moving it gives each of them that opacity, exactly as its own slider would; a layer's own slider can then change it again. While the layers differ, the slider says mixed.

In an app with many layers, type part of a name in Find a layer or folder at the top of the list. Only the layers whose names match stay listed, with the folders that hold them opened; a folder whose name matches keeps everything in it. Your own layers under My layers are searched too. Accents, capitals and Hebrew vowel points make no difference. Clear the search (×), or Escape, brings back the whole list with its folders open or closed as you had them; switching layers on and off works as usual while you search.

The … button of a layer (Layer options) offers:

• Zoom to layer — the whole layer on screen;
• Attribute table — its features as a table;
• Layer info — its dataset, number of features, geometry, style, extent, legend and fields;
• Opacity — from 0 to 100 %;
• for editors, where the app allows editing: Make an editable copy, Add field, Calculate field; and links to the layer's style and settings in Studio.

#3D models

In an app that has 3D models drawn on the map — a georeferenced mesh of a site, for example — Layers lists them under 3D models, above the layers. Tick one to show it in its place, with the app's layers around it; Go to (the target beside its name) flies the map to it. Tilt the map to see the model in relief: drag with the right mouse button, or move two fingers up or down on a touch screen. The model is drawn under the app's layers; tick Model over the layers to draw it on top of them.

#Choosing a layer in a tool

Wherever a tool asks for a layer — Compare, Selection, the Attribute table, Edit features — the list opens on the app's folders, as in Layers, with a search box at the top. Type part of a name (accents, capitals and Hebrew vowel points make no difference), or open the folders with their arrows. Each tool lists only the layers it can work with: Edit features the editable ones, Selection those switched on, and so on. Most open on the chosen layer, its folders opened; Edit features opens with every folder closed, and keeps the ones you open while you edit. The arrow keys move through the list, the right and left arrows open and close a folder (the other way round in Hebrew), Enter chooses and Escape closes.

Cartema remembers, for you, which layers were on, which folders and legends were open or closed, the view, the basemap and the other choices you made, and opens the app as you left it.

#Clearing the map

Right-click the map for Clear graphics. It takes off what is drawn on the map and not saved: measurements, the shape being drawn, a drawing not yet saved (Undo in Draw brings it back), the selection, and the outline of a feature you found, identified or zoomed to. The app's layers and saved drawings are never touched. Clear graphics is greyed out when there is nothing to clear.

#Coordinates and height

The bar at the bottom right of the map shows, under the pointer:

• the coordinate system — click it to choose another of those the app offers (for example WGS 84, a UTM zone or a national grid);
• the coordinates, each with its axis: E and N (easting, northing) on a grid, or latitude and longitude with N/S and E/W in degrees;
• the height of the ground, H: from the app's own terrain model to the decimetre when it has one, even if that layer is switched off; elsewhere, marked ≈, from a world terrain model with cells of about 30 m, a few metres out;
• the scale bar and the scale (1:n) — click the scale and type one (for example 2500, or 1:2500) to go to it.

On a tablet the bar leaves out the pointer's coordinates and height, which a finger cannot hover, so it fits beside the map.

Coordinate grid in the rail draws a grid in the same coordinate system, its interval chosen for the zoom.

#Moving around

Drag to move, scroll or pinch to zoom. The buttons at the top right zoom in and out, turn the map back to north, my location shows where your device is (your position stays on your screen; it is not sent to Cartema), and Zoom to the map's content brings the data of every layer switched on into view, wherever it is — in an app that shows one place's share of a layer, only that share — leaving out the odd feature far from the rest of its layer, so one misplaced point does not shrink the map to a dot.

#On a phone

On a phone the app opens on the map with the panel closed. Picking a tool raises its panel from the bottom as a sheet you can drag higher or lower. The coordinate bar keeps only the scale. For work in the field there is also Cartema for iPhone.