Edit a file

Editing needs KML Explore Pro.

Press Edit (the pencil in the toolbar), or on the Mac choose Draw ▸ Edit (⌥⌘E). The edit bar appears over the map: at the top right beside the inspector on the Mac and iPad, at the top of the map on iPhone. Under it, a line says what a click (tap) does now. Press Done (⌘↩) to stop editing; on the Mac, Draw ▸ Stop Editing (⌥⌘E) does the same.

While editing, the inspector turns into fields (Names, attributes and styles), and selecting a hidden placemark shows it. On iPhone the card and the web question step aside so the map is free, and the inspector waits for its button.

The edit bar

From left to right:

• The tools (below).
• Lines: how a path’s or an area’s next leg is drawn: Straight Lines, Follow Paths (Walking), Follow Roads (Cycling) or Follow Roads (Driving). Remembered.
• +: New Placemark, New Path, New Area (the next click starts a new one, whatever is selected), New Folder, and for a selected area Add a Hole to ….
• Undo and Redo (iPhone and iPad; on the Mac, Edit ▸ Undo ⌘Z and Redo ⇧⌘Z).
• Points (the table icon), for a selected placemark with points: the Points table (⌥⌘P).
• ✓ (End Drawing), while a path or area is being drawn: ends it, and the next click starts a new one.
• Done.

Where the map is narrow (an iPad in portrait with both panels open), the bar takes two rows.

The tools

Tool	Mac	What a click (tap) does
Select and Move	⌃⌘1	Selects a place, path or area; drag its points to move them. See Points.
Placemark	⌃⌘2	Drops a placemark where you click.
Path	⌃⌘3	Adds a point to the selected path, or starts a new one.
Area	⌃⌘4	Adds a point to the selected area’s outline, or starts a new area at its first corner.
Freehand	⌃⌘5	Drag on the map to trace a path. One stroke, then the tool goes back to Select and Move.
Circle	⌃⌘6	Places a circle centered where you click, a sixth of the map across.
Rectangle	⌃⌘7	Click one corner, then the opposite one: an area with north-south and east-west sides.

On the Mac the tools are also in the Draw menu, and ⌥-drag with Path or Area traces freehand into the path or area being drawn.

New things are named Placemark 1, Path 2, Area 3, Circle 4, Rectangle 5 (one more than the highest number already in the file) and selected at once. Rename them in the inspector.

Paths and areas

With Path or Area, each click adds a point to the end. The shape stays open for more until you end it: press Return or Esc (Mac), the ✓ in the edit bar, or Draw ▸ End Path or Area; picking another placemark or tool ends it too. A path left with one point, or an area with fewer than three, is taken away (undo brings it back to finish).

A trace is simplified as it is drawn, to about four screen points, so a wobbly hand doesn’t leave thousands of points. Simplify… takes out more.

Circles and rectangles

KML has no circle, so KML Explore writes one as Geo Measure does: the center as a point and the outline as an area of 120 points at the radius, with the radius in meters as an attribute. Google Earth shows it as a round area with a pin; KML Explore edits it as a circle.

A circle shows two dots: drag the middle one to move it, the one on the edge to size it (the radius shows while you drag). Type a radius in the inspector’s Circle section: 250 m, 0.5 mi, 800 ft, or a number alone in the unit shown. Typing a new value into its radius attribute resizes it too. Radii go up to 5,000 km. Point by point tools (holes, Simplify, Reverse, the Points table) are off for a circle; to work on its points, draw an area.

The card shows a circle’s Area and Radius; the inspector, its area, circumference and center.

Lines along paths and roads

With Follow Paths (Walking), Follow Roads (Cycling) or Follow Roads (Driving) chosen, each new leg of a path or an area’s outline follows the way Apple Maps would take between your two clicks. The leg is dashed while Apple Maps works it out (Finding the way…). Where it finds none, the leg is drawn straight and the line under the edit bar says so. Holes are always drawn straight.

Routing sends the two ends of each leg to Apple Maps. Straight Lines sends nothing.

Where new things go

A new placemark or folder goes into the selected folder, or right after the selected feature in its folder; with nothing selected, into the file’s top folder. What you draw uses three shared styles KML Explore adds to the file once (one each for points, paths and areas), so it opens in Google Earth looking as it does here. A style change in the inspector applies to one placemark unless you choose every placemark using the style; see Styles.

Undo

Every change is one step of undo, named after what it did (Undo Move Point, Undo Add Hole). A run of moves of one slider or color picker is one step. On iPhone and iPad, use the arrows in the edit bar.

The file's structure kept

KML Explore edits the file’s own XML, not a copy of what it understood. Saving keeps the file’s other KML, including what KML Explore doesn’t edit: other apps’ extensions, schemas, comments. Coordinates you don’t change keep the digits the file wrote. Google Earth opens the file as before.

Saving

On the Mac a file saves itself, as KML or KMZ, whichever it is. On iPhone and iPad, edits are written back to the file a moment after the last one and when you leave the app; a new map or a sample waits for File ▸ Save…. See Open KML and KMZ files.