Symbol Editor — Edit MIL-STD-2525 Attributes in map.army

Editor to modify Attributes and Modifiers of Military Symbol and tactical Graphics in map.army

Overview

'MSS Symbol Editor' button in the map.army main window After you have selected military symbols from the gallery and placed them on the map, you can edit and add to a marked symbol in the MSS Symbol Editor.

The editor opens on a single Edit tab, where you customise the modifiers and attributes of the base symbol. Everything on this page happens there. You can also open it by double-clicking a graphic on the map.

The line at the bottom of the editor names the selected symbol and shows where it sits in the symbol library — for example Polyline | Tactical Graphics / Free Format Graphics / Lines / Polyline.

Hint: Two things must be true before the editor opens: a layer has to be active, and a symbol on it has to be selected. Editing acts on one graphic on the active layer, so if the MSS Symbol Editor button stays greyed out, check the Layers panel first — the active layer carries a pencil, and a checkmark means that layer is read-only. See MilX Layers.

Edit Tab

Edit is the main tab, it provides all the functions to create and customise the Military Symbols. This includes the following function groups:

1. Modifiers

The modifiers supported by a Symbol are structured in a Drop-Down Menu. The modifiers can be selected or deselected by a single click. The MSS Symbol Editor supports the modifiers according to the definition in the MIL-STD-2525 standard. This includes the position, availability and length.

Which modifiers you see depends on the Work Mode: International offers the MIL-STD-2525 set, Extended adds country-specific modifiers on top. Change it under General Options.

There is no robotic or unmanned (UGV/UAS) modifier. That indicator belongs to the later APP-6D and APP-6E editions, and map.army draws MIL-STD-2525C, so no combination of modifiers produces it. If you need unmanned assets to stand out on the map, the usual answer is to mark them by colour instead: the Custom Color modifier recolours the symbol itself, and Colored Corners tints the corners of its frame, leaving the standard icon intact. Neither is doctrine — they are a visual convention you define for your own situation, so say what you used in the legend or in an order.

2. Affiliation

The Affiliations a symbol supports are listed in a separate drop-down menu. The Affiliation can be selected by a single click in the Menu:

3. Operational Condition

The available Operational Condition (Status) of a Symbol are structured in a Drop-Down Menu. It can be selected by a single click in the Menu:

4. Text Modifier

The Text-Modifiers available around the symbol or tactical graphic can be edited directly within the Editor. You can find more information on the Modifier by pressing on the `i` – Button:

The character limit on each text modifier is not ours — it is set by MIL-STD-2525, and MSS follows that definition along with the Multilateral Interoperability Programme (MIP) and JC3IEDM. So a field that stops accepting characters has reached the standard’s limit, not a limit of the editor.

5. Icon Extension Modifier

Icon Extension Modifiers are small additional icons attached to a unit, piece of equipment or installation, to express a subordinate role or amplifying information without leaving the standard. They are part of the symbol library in both Work Modes; the Swiss icon extensions come with the Swiss symbol set.

To add one: open the Symbol Editor on a placed symbol and look in the Modifiers menu — where the symbol supports icon extensions, they are listed there. Pick an icon, then set its size (10 to 999 %, default 100) and its vertical position (−100 to 100, default 0). A symbol can carry more than one; they are preserved in MilX exports.

Hint: Icon Extension Modifiers are not a path for arbitrary custom imagery (logos, unit crests, scanned graphics). Those use cases are best served by image overlays on a separate layer — see “Import Layer” in the Layers section.
Hint: Text modifiers have a hard length limit, set by MIL-STD-2525 rather than by the editor. A character counter appears beside the field only when you are within five characters of the limit — before that there is no indication, and once you hit it further typing is simply ignored.

The free-text modifier works differently. Where a symbol offers the free-text modifier (XN), it opens a small text editor with a size choice (Small, Normal, Large, Subheading, Heading), bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, left / centre / right alignment and bullet lists. Its limit is 3000 characters of the stored, formatted text, so formatting uses up part of the budget. You can keep typing past it; when you close the editor you are warned Free Text Modifier (XN) maximum length exceed. and the text is not applied — shorten it and close the editor again.

6. Base Symbol

Everything above changes what is around the symbol. Base Symbol… changes the symbol itself — you keep the graphic where it is, with its modifiers, and swap which military symbol it draws.

It is the leftmost control in the editor’s row, marked with a magnifier and sitting ahead of Affiliation and Operational Condition:

'Base Symbol...' as the first control in the map.army MSS Symbol Editor row, left of 'Affiliation'

Clicking it opens Base Symbol Search…, where you find the replacement by typing part of its name:

The 'Base Symbol Search...' dialog in map.army with its symbol-name search field

Use it when a symbol was placed in a hurry, when a unit turns out to be something else, or when a batch of graphics arrived from an import carrying a generic symbol — see Import Overlays.

For several graphics at once, copy a symbol that is already right, select the graphics on the map, and paste: every selected graphic takes the copied base symbol in one step.

Hint: Only compatible symbols are offered a swap, and the app says so when one is not. The replacement has to match the graphic it is replacing in shape — a single-point symbol for a single-point symbol, a multi-point graphic for a multi-point graphic, with the same kind of point geometry. Pick an incompatible one and nothing changes: you get the message “Could not replace the symbol: Incompatible MSS Symbols” and the graphic stays as it was. That is the expected refusal, not a fault. In practice single-point symbols swap freely, while a free-form line or area can only become another free-form line or area.

7. Free-Format Options

The free-drawing shapes of Generic Graphics — pins, lines, areas, texts, rectangles, ellipses and circles — carry one more control in the editor’s top row: a palette button, Free-Format Options, with line, fill and text styling and Edit Format XML. Standard military symbols and tactical graphics do not have it. See Generic Graphics.

Apply and Discard

Changes you make in the editor are not written to the graphic straight away. The two buttons at the bottom of the editor stay greyed out until you change something:

  • Apply writes your changes to the graphic on the map.
  • Discard throws them away and reloads the graphic as it is stored.
Hint: Selecting another graphic applies your unsaved changes automatically. If you change your mind about an edit, press Discard before you click the next symbol on the map — afterwards, use Undo (Ctrl + Z).