My favorite Icons

Canosso made a Plugin which allows you to add and edit favorite Icons for World Wind. The script works only for World Wind 1.3.2 and higher, it's called My favorite Icons. Please download the favoriteicons.zip, from below and unzip it into your World Wind directory.

First I have to say, I'm one those evil copy-cats who taken the code of TomServo's Earthquake plugin to make the layer visible. I thank him and ShockFire for the inspiration. I also taken the knowledge of Doug Hill's Favorites Plugin but only the knowledge how to add an extra menu.

To start it, choose Plugins and load there FavoriteIcons. Afterwards choose in the My Favorite Icons menu, the item. Now will see a form with four tabs: Add an favorite Icon, Edit Favorites List, Import from File and Save in an extra file with a Insert Coordinates Menu. You are now in the Add an favorite Icon Tab., you can easily add points to a script

You can add either an Icon or an Favorite, the last is only a Link in Favorite Icons. You can also import other files, like GPX Waypoint files, WW Layers, CSV file, if wanted temporary for only finding the places of this files. The Favorites.txt is a tab separated text with 5 columns.

Add an Icon simple: Go to the place where you want to add an Icon/Favorite, load either the form in Add an Icon or Edit Icons or press the button "Insert the current coordinates" to get the current coordinates. Insert the Name of the Icon, this will be shown later in the Layer Manager and in Favorite Icons. Input a Description, if wanted, for this point. Also you add a ClickableUrl, after double-click your browser will start with this link. Change, if wanted, at Add an Icon/Favorite from Yes (=Icon) to Only Link in Favorites, if want only add an link. Press the Add to Favorites button and now the link will be added at Favorite Icons and a Icon at this place, if you wanted one. You don't need to save anything, all changes will be saved automaticly.

Insert an URI, GPX Data or DMS Coordinates: Under the Insert Coordinates Menu you'll find 3 items. 1. Insert URI, here you can past an URI in the form, World Wind will go to the coordinates, for this function is the shortcut Crtl+U available. 2. Insert a GPX Track Point, here you can past a GPX Trackpoint in the form, World Wind will go to the coordinates, for this function is the shortcut Crtl+G available. 2. Insert DMS Coordinates, here you can past DMS coordinates in the form, the coordinates should be formatted XX°XX'XX" XX°XX'XX", e.g. 37°49'35" 122°25'18" with the orientation char before or after the coordinates,World Wind will go to the coordinates, for this function is the shortcut Crtl+D available.

These are all input options.

Editing, Searching, Removing and Inserting new points For Search in the Icon List, input the name at Search for Icon/Favorite and press Search, the cursor in the DataGrid will go to this place and World Wind will go to this place. For removing the current entry Remove Current Entry, Remove All Entries deletes all entries except the first, this one will be replaced with your input. Remove All Entries will delete your Favorites file, therefore be careful. For Editing an entry press "Edit Current Entry", the form will filled with data of this entry also World Wind will move to this place if the entry has coordinates. You can now edit this data in the form, add messages, remove the heading/tilt, change the delay and so on. If you press "Add to ..", the entry will be replaced with the data of the form, normally.

You see on the right side the Textbox "Insert Position", normally there is no number in the box, only after you press "Edit Current Entry", you see a number, that is the entry number.

You can insert not replace the entry if you choose no at "Replace Entry at Insert Position", if you also choose yes at "Insert multiple lines" you will insert all input until you choose no at this option. You can also simple input a number at "Insert Position" and choose no for the first option and yes for the second and you insert all points at the entry number, you filled in.

Moving the points of the dataGrid For moving the current entry there are 4 options, the Arrow buttons. First choose the row you want to move and then press the button.

The ^-Button is for moving the entry up. The v-Button is for moving the entry below. The ArrowUp-Button is for moving the entry on top of the list. The ArrowDown -Button is for moving the entry on the bottom of the list.

Import Files to a Layer You can either import a Favorite Icon file, GPX waypoint file, a Text/CSV file or a layer file, the last one for editing, append and so on.

Also you can choose, if you want to Append to Favorites List to the Favorites file, to import the file only temporary. If no is checked, it has the same function like Remove All Entries, this will delete your Favorites file, be careful. If you choose Show the imported Icons temporary, the points of the file will be shown in the Imported Icons layer and links will be added in Imported Icons/Favorites. There will be only links added, if you choose With Only add a Link in "Imported Icons/Favorites" temporary. Change, if wanted for the first two append options, at Add an Icon/Favorite from Yes (=Icon) to Only Link in Favorites, if want only add an link. Change the Altitude, it will be the Altitude of the Favorite view.

For a Favorite Icon file, GPX waypoint file or a layer file, simply press the button.

For a Text/CSV File you have to change the column headers of this file. Mandatory is Latitude, Longitude and IconName. You can also have a Description,, ClickableUrl, column, the last three if you want to place the icon on a different altitude respectively have varying icon sizes.

Please first choose how the values are separated or better in which format you saved it. The best format to use, is separated by Tabs, you will not have the problems to look in the file how it is separated. Because in countries with comma as decimal separator, the CSV file will be separated by a semicolon. Then choose the Kind of coordinates, Decimal Point or Comma for standard coordinates or DMS for DMS coordinates, e.g. N 47°40'43" E 15°43'52".

Saving the File You can save the data as Favorite Icon file, for sending to somebody else.

For saving as Layer file, please fill in a Layer name. Change if wanted Save all Points (Icons/Favorites)to Save only Icons, so only the Icons of this file will be saved, not the others which are only a link. Change if wanted Show only this Layer to Yes, so only this Layer will be shown, no Image Layer, nothing else. Change if wanted Show this Layer at World Wind Start to Yes, so the Layer will be shown at World Wind Start. Press Pick an Toolbar Icon to choose the Icon for the toolbar, best size of this Icon is 128x128 pixels. Then click the Save the Layer button, save the Layer as .xml file in the Config/Earth directory. After restart of World Wind the Toolbar Icon should be visible and if press on it the Layer should be shown.

Known Problems

It seem that only non-foreign chars could be used.

Large Numbers (about 44000 Icons) of Icons will take a long time to load if they are imported the import process lasting to long.


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