Editing in Latitude

About the “Play” area

The Play state was made to allow the planning personnel to experiment with planning layers. As such it only has the
minimum needed to show the default layers and all the planning layers, other layers are empty. It also has connections
to the council databases but no way to edit them.

Changing to and from the Play area of Latitude

Before starting Latitude run the “Latitude Play.reg” program. This will setup Latitude to enter the “play” state. To
return to normal run the “Latitude Standard.reg” program. Note that running these programs effect the Latitude
instances after it. If you have normal Latitude open before running the “Latitude Play” program, it will remain normal
and other Latitude instances will be the play area so it is possible to have both environments open at the same time.
Note also that the play area is shaded light blue so that mistakes between the two are minimized.

The toolbar
Down the right hand side of the Latitude window is the set of maintenance tools.
Undo
Cut
Copy
Paste
Delete
Create new line
Create new polygon
Create new text
Create new symbol
Select one element
Select multiple elements one by one
Select everything in a circular region
Select everything touching a line
Select everything within a polygon
Select everything on screen
Move selected elements
Rotate selected elements
Separate a line element into two line elements
Join selected line elements
Create a polygon out of line elements
Merge polygons
Rotate polygons
Create a buffer around polygons
Selecting a polygon, line, text or symbol
Make sure the layer of the element you want to select is searchable (ie. It’s search tick box is ticked)

Then using the select buttons in the toobar, select the elements you want to edit (in much the same way as doing a
search). The following three windows will be displayed.

By selecting an element from the “Maintenance Actions” window, the details of the element will be shown in the Editing
window (in this case called “Polygon Element”). The third window is for precise positioning (or in the case of text, what
text you want to display). It will also highlight the element you are looking at on the map (in this case, parcel 25).

Editing a polygon, line, text or symbol

In the Editing window:

 Class is the definition of the colour, fill, line thickness, symbol type, font and when it is visible (ie. If zoomed right
out it is undesirable to display all the street numbers that would be too small to see.
 Layer is what layer the element is on.
 Key is the identifying attribute to link the element to a database
 Nodes are the location attributes of the shape (a square will have 4 nodes). By selecting a node you can
reposition it on the map or type the position in the third window.
Committing Changes
When an element is changed, the “store” button on the “Maintenance Actions” window must be pressed to confirm the
changes before moving to another element. If not done then all the changes will be lost when another element is
selected.

When a user is satisfied with all the changes made, he will click “Commit” to save the changes and clear the
Maintenance Action window of elements. In the background, this will create a new file for the layer that was edited so
the administrator can roll back to any point of change if a mistake is made.

Changing the colour of a polygon, line or text or changing a symbol

All the colours for the new planning scheme is either replacing the current colours (ie. Commercial colour has been
changed) or has been made class 160 through to 176 so going into Refedit should not be needed. However if it is:

1. Open Refedit (Do not experiment with Refedit as it is possible to access the live system through it)
2. A window will open like this

3. Open “Reference Files”

4. Open “Graphic Specifications” and a window will open like this

5. Find the Class of the element you want to change

6. Change it as needed
7. Continue with all the classes you need to change
8. Press Save when finished.