Happy #MapInfoMonday!
This is the last of the #MapInfoMonday posts during the release week of MapInfo Pro v2023. In this article, I will take you through some of the usability improvements we have implemented. I also want to highlight a few of the newer tools in the MapInfo Marketplace that can help you get more out of MapInfo Pro.
These improvement suggestions have been brought to our attention in various ways. They come in through the Precisely Ideas website, from discussions on the Knowledge Community, through our Support Team, during talks with customers in meetings and at webinars/seminars, and via direct emails to our team.
Explorer Window
We made a number of improvements to the Explorer window.
You can now turn the visibility on and off for the Cosmetic layer via the Layer List. Personally, this is one of my favorite improvements. I have countless times needed to do this.
In the Table List, we have added a small lock icon to the tables that are read-only. You will find this lock on the right side.
As I mentioned in the article on support for M & Z values, we now have different icons for tables that do and don't support M/Z. You find these icons on the left side of the table names.
Browser Window
In the browser window, we have added an additional menu item to the context menu to make it easier to move to the selected record.
The feature to find the selected records is not new. We have just highlighted it by adding a menu to it.
Gridline Layer
We have added the option for users to specify a label expression for gridline layers. Earlier this was disabled and controlled by the gridline feature.
The temporary table Gridline has these three columns:
- The
GridLabel column contains the calculated label value that depends on the CoordSys used and the gridline properties.
- The
LineType columns contain a 1 for horizontal lines and 2 for vertical lines.
- The
LabelPosition is a number representing where the label is drawn.
You can use an expression like this to see the various values: GridLabel + "_" + Str$(LineType) + "_" + Str$(LabelPosition)
You modify the Label Expression via the Layer Properties dialog for the Gridline layer. You can access the Label Expression dialog on the Label Display tab. In the example below, the labels have been shortened for all lines where the coordinate isn't "dividable" with 5,000,000.
Keep in mind that the column GridLabel is a string column.
In the resulting map, you can see that only some of the labels show the full coordinate value. The others show a label with fewer 0's. This is just one example of how you can modify the labels.
MapInfo Marketplace and additional MapBasic tools
In the MapInfo Marketplace, there have been updates to a number of tools and we have also added some new ones.
- DrawTools has been updated with various features to help you work with X/M values on nodes and points.
- Multi Search Tool can help you search, filter, and query your tables
- SiteMapper has been in the marketplace for a while but it's always worthwhile to give it a shoutout. SiteMapper is a batch printing tool
- What3Words isn't new but we still hear from users looking for this capability inside MapInfo Pro
- SLOPEz allows you to analyze tables with Z levels, typical as attribute values.
These are just some of the updated and new tools.
We have also included several new tools with the MapInfo Pro installer. You will find these tools in the Tools window.
- Import Multiple MIF/MID Files - Tool for importing Multiple MIF\MID files into N/NativeX tables
- Save Table with New BlockSize - Convert Tables to use new Map File block size for optimization in x64
- MGRS Converter - Tool for converting Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) <-> XY in any Coordinate system
- USNG Converter - Tool for converting US National Grid (USNG) <-> XY in any Coordinate system
- MGRS Find Tool - Find a location on the map using a Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) string.
- USNG Find Tool - Find a location on the map using a US National Grid (USNG) string.
- Build Seamless Raster - Build a seamless raster table from a folder
- MapBasic Functions Extension - Adds a series of Custom MapBasic functions for use in MapInfo Pro
And we updated these three existing tools:
- SyncWindows - Added Draw Polygon tool to SyncWindows.
- DegreeConverter - Fixed issue for rescanning columns when changing tables or DMS\Decimal conversion options.
- Concentric Buffers - Add an optional checkbox to add a RingID column to the result buffer table to allow users to join these buffer records to another table using a common identifier.
Finally, MapCAD has been updated with a tool that allows you to mirror the selected object on an axis drawn by the tool
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Peter Horsbøll Møller
Principal Presales Consultant | Distinguished Engineer
Precisely | Trust in Data
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