Attribute Editor

To open the attribute list for a layer, highlight a layer in the Control Center and select the Edit Attribute button or right-click on the vector layer in the Control Center, and choose Edit Attributes....

This displays the Attribute Editor window with a table view displaying the attributes for all features in the layer. The attribute list displays columns in the order that the attributes are listed in the layer. The window title bar lists the name of the layer that the list is generated from.

The Attribute Editor window can be floating, or docked, including docked with multiple tabs showing different windows.

To edit an attribute in the tabular view, click on the cell in the table to select it. Then click on it again to enable editing.

Enable the Synchronize Feature Selection tool to sync the selection between the digitizer tool and the highlighted rows in the list.

Use the SHIFT or CTRL keys to highlight multiple rows, for use with the toolbar buttons like Edit, Delete, and the right-click context menu.

Click a column name to sort the column in ascending order. Click the column name again to sort in descending order. Right-click on the Column Name and un-check listed columns to hide them from the table.

Press the Search button to limit the list to rows that match a search criteria.

Note: Special Attributes values, including <Feature Name>, <Feature Type> <Description> and <Index in Layer are not editable from the Attribute List.

Note: There is a limitation on the number of features that can be listed. For Global Mapper 32-bit the feature limit is 1 million, for Global Mapper 64-bit the feature limit is 5 million.

Table display

Selection

Use the SHIFT or CTRL keys to highlight multiple rows, for use with the toolbar buttons like Edit, Delete, and the right-click context menu.

Double-clicking on an item in the list will recenter the view on that object.

Count

The bottom of the table displays the count of rows, and the number of selected rows.

Deleted Features

When Render Deleted Features is enabled, deleted features will appear gray in the attribute editor list.

Column Display

The column names are listed in the order that they are found as each feature is processed in the layer list.

Search Results for multiple layers are listed with the attributes in alphabetical order.

Show/ Hide Attributes

Press the Show/Hide Attributes button or right-click on the Column Name at the top of the table and choose the Show/Hide Attributes... option. In the dialog un-check listed columns to hide them from the table.

Use the Check All and Clear All buttons to quickly select or deselect all attribute.

An individual column can also be hidden by right-clicking on the Column Name and choosing the Hide option at the bottom of the context menu.

Resize

To resize a column, drag the divider between the Column Names at the top of the table. The cursor will display an arrow icon when the Right click on a row and chose the Shrink all columns to minimum size option to make all columns small. Double click on the divider between the columns to expand the column width back to the full with of the values.

Search

When the search tool is launched from a layer attribute list, the default search will search within the layer only.

For more information on searching features see Search Vector Data.

If the search is changed to Search All Enabled Layers or Search Onscreen Features Only, the Attribute Editor window name will update to Search Results, rather than the layer name.

Selection and Editing

Use the SHIFT or CTRL keys to highlight multiple rows, for use with the toolbar buttons like Edit, Delete, and the right-click context menu.

Note: For data loaded from external files, all edits will be stored as changes in the workspace. The original file is not modified until a layer is exported. For more information see Creating and Editing Features

Save to CSV

Press the Save to CSV button to save the attributes in the selected rows to an external tabular format. CSV and TXT files are readable by text editor applications, like notepad. They can also be imported as tables in applications like Microsoft Excel.

The export will provide an option to choose the delimiter:

  • Comma
  • Semi-colon
  • Tab

Right-click on the selected rows for the additional options: Copy the Selected Features to the Clipboard and Copy the Selected Results to the Clipboard as Text.

Synchronize Feature Selection with Main Window

This toggle will sync the selection between the digitizer tool and the attribute editor. When the sync is first enabled, it will preference features selected on the map with the digitizer tool.

Show Only Features Selected in Digitizer

This toggle restricts the visible contents of the Attribute Editor to features that are currently selected with the digitizer. This button is only enabled when the "Synchronize Feature Selection with Main Window" button is selected. When the Sync function is turned off, the "Show Only Features Selected in Digitizer" button is disabled.

New Attribute

Press the New attribute button to add new attribute to all features currently loaded in the table.

Type a name for the attribute in the Attribute Name box, or choose from the list of attributes recently added in the digitizer tool.

At the bottom of the dialog, choose from the following duplicate attribute detection options:

  • Do not update any features - If the attribute name already exists for any of the loaded features, the new attribute will not be added. This option prevents accidentally replacing attribute values.
  • Add it to features that don't have it or where it is empty - The specified value will be assigned to the feature only if the attribute value is empty or the attribute does not exist.
  • Add it to features to don't have it; update features that do - All features in the current list will be updated with the new attribute value, replacing any other values that might exist for that attribute.