QGIS 7 Navigation and selection
The bae‐actions of editing—but in QGIS nothing is straightforward.
Navigation of the map
Pan
To move round (‘pan’), QGIS has, like many PDF viewers, a ‘hand’ tool. Drag and drop the map left/right etc. If you loose the ‘hand’ tool, you can reselect it with the button.
Zoom
The ‘scale’ tool in the status bar may look tempting, but most maps will look best at a preset scale. That tool is not for basic zooming.
So, to zoom, there is a box in the statusbar (at the bottom of the window). But you will want to zoom in and out often. So, if there is one keypress you should learn for QDIS, it is zoom. Zoom in: CRTL‐ALT +, zoom out: CTRL‐ALT ‧ On my computer, this is weird, it’s CTRL‐FN
Making Selections
There’s many ways to select features in QGIS. Given the huge size of land‐map data, they are needed. Items can be selected by,
Single click
Freehand loops/circles
Entering equations over base data
And several variants. Note that selection usually only works on the current layer. For example (also a button),
Select a layer
Get the items you want to edit into view
Edit > Select > Select Features by Freehand
[left click] Start, drag out a shape, then finish [left click] finish a selection area
To finish click the ‘Hand’ button, or you will continue to draw selections
Whatever features are on that layer and inside the selection area should react to show a selection has been made.
Notes about selection
The basic ‘Select Feature’ tool will not only select by clicking, but let you drag out a box. Useful
the freehand tool sometimes will not work for me
Selection won’t work if…
Making selections is not always easy. In particular, to make a selection, you must,
have the layer selected
QGIS will do nothing if selected for a layer with no objects
‘Toggle editing’ must be on
This is probably some kind of protection?
The layers above must not have intrusive objects
If you edit a layer heavily, it will help to hide the layers above.
I’d say this is not a issue with QGIS, there is much data. But it can frustrate.
Next the freehand