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Manage MilX Overlays: Create, Edit, and Organise Layers

The military symbols for a situation map are stored on one or more layers.

If possible, use different layers for different information. That helps later when the maps get confusing. Then individual layers can be made invisible. Layers can also be saved or exchanged individually.

Overview

This button displays the dialog for managing the layers and their exchange.

When starting map.army ‘New Layer’ is the active Layer. Military signatures are drawn on these.

The active layer

At any time exactly one layer is the active layer — the one new symbols are drawn on. The active layer is marked by a pencil icon next to the layer name in the Layer Manager:

• Click a layer name to toggle it active/inactive (pencil appears / disappears).
• If the Add Symbol button looks greyed-out, the most common cause is that no layer is active — pick a layer in the Layer Manager and try again.
• Switching the map to 3D view and back deactivates the working layer; you must re-activate it after returning to 2D.

A new, fresh-from-template layer can also start without the pencil — click the layer once to activate before placing symbols.

MilX Layers

The following functions are available in the layer management:

Button	Description
	With this button a new layer is created.
	Layers in MilX format can be loaded here (see also chapter ‘Import Overlays’).
	One or more layers are saved in the MilX format (see also chapter ‘Export Overlays’).
	Layers can be marked and then deleted.
	Create a share to exchange the link via social platforms (see Data-Exchange → How to create a share)
	Functions for layers:
	The pencil marks the active layer. A click on the layer name switches the pen on or off.
	A layer can be shown or hidden. The button in the header executes the function for all layers.
	The map is zoomed to the content of the layer (all signatures are displayed). The button in the header executes the function for all layers.
	This button can be used to adjust the settings of the layer and its name.

All or some of the layers created can be saved in MilX format and reloaded later (see chapter ‘Export Overlays’ and ‘Import Overlays’).

Move symbols between layers

You can select multiple symbols at once and move them between layers:

• Multi-select by holding Ctrl and clicking each symbol in turn.
• Or hold Ctrl and drag a selection rectangle around a group of symbols.
• Then drag the selection onto the target layer in the Layer Manager. All selected symbols transfer in one step.

This is also the recipe for merging two layers: select everything in the source layer (Ctrl+drag a rectangle covering them all) and drag onto the destination layer; once empty, the source layer can be deleted via the Delete button.

Layer status: working vs approved

A MilX layer carries a status flag separate from its symbols:

• Working / Draft — the default. Symbols render with full affiliation-based colouring (blue friendly, red hostile, green neutral, yellow unknown).
• Approved — the layer renders in black-and-white regardless of each symbol’s individual Colored checkbox. This is the standard “approved” presentation used in military overlays.

Set the status from the layer’s settings dialog (gear icon next to the layer name). See Options → Symbol Format → Colored for the per-symbol equivalent.

Vektor and Image Layers

map.army offers you the option of importing your own graphics as a layer. During the import this can be shifted, zoomed and rotated until the correct position is set (see also chapter ‘Import Overlays’).

The placement coordinates can be saved as config.json in order to be able to use them again later.

Attention: Vector and image layers are not taken into account when sharing or saving and loading MilX layers.

Session persistence

What survives a page reload or browser restart depends on the layer type:

For safe persistence across machines or sessions:

• Export to .milxlyz before closing — see Export Overlays. This is the only reliable cross-session storage for MilX layers.
• For image overlays, keep the image and config.json together in a directory you re-select each session.
• Create a MilX Share to keep a copy server-side — see How to create a share.

There is no automatic “save state and resume” feature; treat an open session like an unsaved document.

Signatures on map and layer

When the layer dialog is open, signatures in the layer dialog and on the map are synchronized. This means that if you mark a signature in the dialog, it will be centered and marked on the map. Conversely, a signature that is marked on the map is also marked in the dialog.

You can search for signatures within a layer in the layer dialog by entering the name in the ‘Filter MSS Symbols …’ field.