Stacking Display Styles to Create a Custom Look - MapInfo_Pro - 2023

You can stack styles for a layer, so that they become a list of styles drawn on top of each other, to create a more complex or interesting looking map feature. You can stack styles for points, polylines, and polygon features. This is especially useful for polyline styles.

Figure A shows a sample line using one of MapInfo's interleaved line styles. Figure B shows the same sample using a stacked line style.

A. interleaved line style

B. stacked line style

Stacked styles create more meaningful display styles for your application without having to add your data as multiple layers in a map. You can define as many styles in a stacked style as you want. However, the more styles you define the more you will impact the map's rendering performance. Typically, most cartographic maps would use two or three styles in a stacked style to draw features.

Stacked Styles are part of Layer Style Overrides

To set up a stacked style, you must first check the layer's Style Override check box, which you access through the Layer Properties dialog box (or, similarly, through the Zoom Ranged Display Override dialog box). Stacked styles become part of your layer's display settings and apply to every object in the layer. Stacked styles are not stored as part of a TAB file; instead, they are saved in a workspace, because they are part of a layer's display settings. This means that you can apply stacked styles even if the TAB files you are working with are read-only.

How Ranged Themes and Individual Value Themes apply to Stacked Styles

When applying a ranged theme or an individual value theme to a layer that has stacked display styles, the stacked styles are modified by the theme.

If the theme modifies:

• color, then the color for each style in the stack are modified.
• size, such as symbol size or line width, then the largest style in the stack is modified and all other styles are scaled according to it. This ensures that symbols, and lines, do not obscure one another.

Themes work across all styles in a stack, you cannot apply a theme to an individual style in a stack.

Stacking Styles for a Layer

To set stacked styles for a layer:

1. On the HOME tab, in the Windows group, click Tool Windows, and click Explorer from the list, to open the Explorer window.
2. In the Layer s list, right-click a layer to add stacked styles to and select Layer Properties from the pop-up menu.
3. In the Layer Properties dialog box, on the Layer Display tab, select the Style Override check box.
4. Select the Use Stacked Styles check box.
5. Click on the Style button.
6. In the Stacked Styles dialog box, click Add to add another style to the stack.

   When you click the Add button the top two passes in the list are the same. The new pass is a copy of the previous style pass. Modify one or more of the style passes, so that the top style does not cover up the lower passes. For example, when creating a stacked symbol style, you might give the top pass a smaller symbol size, or give the second pass a larger symbol size.

7. In the Styles list, click on a style swatch and modify its settings. This opens a style dialog for the object type: region, symbol, or line. Make your changes and click OK.
   Note: When creating a stacked region style, uncheck the Background check box in the Region Style dialog to make the top style transparent.
8. Repeat the previous step to modify styles settings for the other style swatches in the Style list.
9. Optionally, reorder styles in the style list by clicking the Move Up and Move Down buttons.
10. Click OK to close the stacked styles dialog box and apply your settings. Your settings display on the map for the layer.

Once you have set up a stacked style, you can modify the style by clicking the layer swatch in the Layers list.

Changing a Stacked Style Back to a Simple Style

To change a stacked style back to a simple style:

1. On the HOME tab, in the Windows group, click Tool Windows, and click Explorer from the list, to open the Explorer window.
2. In the Layers list, click on the style swatch of the stacked style that you want to modify.
3. Select the item from the Style list that you do not want and click Remove. Continue until only a single style is left in the list.
4. Click OK to apply your changes to the layer.