FacilMap

Layers

In Leaflet, a lot of different types of objects are layers internally, for example tile layers, polylines, markers and even tooltips. In the context of FacilMap, there are base layers (tile layers that make up the main map style, only one can be active at a time) and overlays (layers that are shown on top of the base layer). These layers are used in the following way:

  • The frontend offers the user to change which base layer and which overlays are visible
  • Saved views contain information about which base layer and which overlays should be visible
  • The location hash stores which base layer and which overlays are visible.

facilmap-leaflet maintains a list of available base layers and overlays. This list is used by the layer picker in the frontend to show the available layers to the user, but it is also used when for views and the location hash to distinguish which layers on a map are FacilMap layers and which are other types of Leaflet layers.

The methods on this page make it possible to add FacilMap’s default selection of layers to a map and to modify that selection.

Get the available layers

To get the available layers, call getLayers(map). It returns an Object whose baseLayers and overlays properties contain an object that maps a key to a Leaflet layer. The key is used to identify the map in the location hash or in a saved view. The reason why the map has to be passed as an argument is that a Leaflet layer object can only be used on one map at a time. Internally, getLayers(map) persists the list of maps in the _fmLayers property of the map.

The following example shows how to add a Leaflet Layers controlopen in new window to the map that shows all the available layers. Note that the control expects objects mapping the layer name to the layer, while the objects returned by getLayers(map) map the layer key to the layer, so a mapping has to be done. FacilMap layers use the fmName option to store their display name.

import L from "leaflet";
import { getLayers } from "facilmap-leaflet";

const map = L.map('map');
const layers = getLayers(map);
const byName = (layerMap) => Object.fromEntries(Object.entries(layerMap).map(([key, layer]) => [layer.options.fmName || key, layer]));
L.control.layers(byName(layers.baseLayers), byName(layers.overlays)).addTo(map);

Set the layer options

There are some global layer options that change the behaviour of the available layers:

  • limaLabsToken: A Lima Labsopen in new window API token. If defined, the Lima Labs layer will be available and used as the default layer instead of Mapnik. Lima Labs layers are very similar to Mapnik in style, but they are double resolution (so they don’t look pixely on high-resolution screens) and have English place names in addition to the local language.

To set the global layer options, use the setLayerOptions() function:

import { setLayerOptions } from "facilmap-leaflet";

setLayerOptions({
	limaLabsToken: "..."
});

Note that to avoid unexpected inconsistencies, this should be called before getLayers() or any other of functions documented on this page are called.

Change the available layers

To change the available layers for a particular Leaflet map, set the _fmLayers properties of that map.

import L from "leaflet";

const map = L.map('map');
map._fmLayers = {
	baseLayers: {
		test: L.tileLayer("...", { fmName: "Test" })
	},
	overlays: {
		ovr1: L.tileLayer("...", { fmName: "Overlay 1" })
	}
};

To change the available layers for all maps, use setLayers():

import { setLayers } from "facilmap-leaflet";

setLayers(() => ({
	baseLayers: {
		test: L.tileLayer("...", { fmName: "Test" })
	},
	overlays: {
		ovr1: L.tileLayer("...", { fmName: "Overlay 1" })
	},
	fallbackLayer: "test"
}));

Note that setLayers() only affects how the _fmLayers property is created, it does not affect the _fmLayers properties of existing maps. This means that it has to be called before any part of the code accesses the layers of the map.

The FacilMap frontend uses the fmName option to decide under which name to show a layer. The layer key needs to be unique and should by convention be 4 characters long.

If you want to extend the default selection of layers, you can get it using createDefaultLayers():

import { createDefaultLayers, setLayers } from "facilmap-leaflet";

setLayers(() => {
	const layers = createDefaultLayers();
	layers.baseLayers.test = L.tileLayer("...", { fmName: "Test" });
	layers.overlays.ovr1: L.tileLayer("...", { fmName: "Overlay 1" });
	return layers;
}));

Get the visible layers

To find out which of the FacilMap layers are currently visible, use the getVisibleLayers(map) function. It returns an object with the following properties:

  • baseLayer: A string that contains the layer key of the currently visible base layer
  • overlays: An array of strings with the layer keys of the currently visible overlays

Set the visible layers

setVisibleLayers(map, visibleLayers) can be used with an object of the same shape as returned by getVisibleLayers(map):

import L from "leaflet";
import { setVisibleLayers } from "facilmap-leaflet";

const map = L.map('map');
setVisibleLayers(map, { baseLayer: "Mpnk", overlays: ["Hike", "Rlie"] });

If visibleLayers is not specified, it defaults to { baseLayer: "Mpnk", overlays: [] }.

The helper functions setBaseLayer(map, baseLayer) and toggleOverlay(map, overlay) can be used to change the visibility of individual layers:

import L from "leaflet";
import { setBaseLayer, toggleOverlay } from "facilmap-leaflet";

const map = L.map('map');
setBaseLayer(map, "Mpnk");
toggleOverlay(map, "Hike");

To find out the key of an existing layer, open https://facilmap.org/open in new window, enable the desired layer and find the layer key in the location hash in the address bar of your browser. For example, when Mapnik and Hiking paths are enabled, the URL will look like this: https://facilmap.org/#9/52.5196/13.4069/Mpnk-Hike.