Configuring Layers
When you select a layer in the catalog dialog, a configuration panel appears below the info panel. The options shown depend on the layer's geometry type (polygon, line, or point) and its capabilities.
This section covers every configuration option in detail.
Pre-Defined Styles vs Custom Configuration
Layers fall into two categories:
- Pre-defined style layers — ship with one or more ready-made MapLibre GL style variants. A dropdown lets you pick a style (e.g. "Standard", "Signals", "Max Speed" for a railway layer). No further customisation is needed.
- Customisable layers — backed by PMTiles vector tiles. You have full control over fill, outline, labels, extrusion, lines, points, visibility, and filters.
Most boundary and administrative layers are customisable. Some infrastructure and reference layers use pre-defined styles.
Configuration Tabs
For customisable layers, configuration is organised into tabs. The tabs that appear depend on what the layer's schema supports:
| Tab | Geometry Types | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Fill | Polygon | Fill colour for polygon features. |
| Outline | Polygon | Border/stroke around polygon features. |
| Extrusion | Polygon | 3D height for polygon features. |
| Lines | LineString | Colour and width for line features. |
| Points | Point | Icons or circles for point features. |
| Labels | All | Text labels on features. |
| Visibility | All | Min/max zoom level control. |
| Filters | All | Filter features by attribute values. |
Layer Groups
Some datasets are composed of multiple variants — for example, a country's boundaries at different levels of detail. These are presented as layer groups with two possible modes:
Zoom-Based Groups
Different variants display at different zoom levels. For example:
- Zoom 0–6: coarse 22 km boundaries
- Zoom 6–10: medium 3 km boundaries
- Zoom 10+: fine 400 m boundaries
MapLibre handles the switching automatically. Each variant can have its own styling or share a common configuration.
Toggle Groups
A dropdown in the configuration panel lets the user select which variant to display. Only one variant is visible at a time.
Applying a Configuration
Once you're happy with the configuration, click Add Layer to add the configured layer to your layer list. You can always edit the configuration later by clicking the Edit button next to the layer in the layer list.