Managing icons

Icons are the small pictures that tell people what a place on your map is: a community garden, a bike repair shop, a drinking fountain. They are shown on the map, in the map legend, and on the details of every site, and your visitors can use them to filter the map.

Icons are grouped in icon sets. A set belongs to a team, and the team can use it on any of its maps. If you want some advice on designing icons before you upload them, take a look at our Icon Design Guide.

Table of contents

Managing icons

Adding an icon set

To add an icon set to your team, follow these 3 simple steps:

Click on the “+” button from the top menu and select Icon set.
Fill in the name, a short description, and select the team that owns the set.
Press the Add button to create the new set and get redirected to the icon editor.

A new icon set is private, so only your team can see it while you are working on it. When it’s ready, you can make it public from the icon set properties.

An icon set doesn’t show up anywhere until a map uses it. To show your icons on a map, add the set to the icon sets field of the map. You can find out how in our maps guide.

Opening the icon editor

Everything you do with an icon set happens in the icon editor: adding icons, putting them in order, writing their descriptions, choosing their colors and translating them. To open it:

Navigate to your team dashboard.
Find the card of the icon set that you want to edit.
Click on the card title or on the open button.

Only people with rights to edit the set can change it. Everyone else can look at the icons, but they won’t see any of the editing options.

Once you open the editor, you will see something like this:

the icon editor

The editor has four parts:

The heading at the top shows the name of the set and the buttons for the actions that affect the whole set.
The icon grid shows every icon of the set, grouped by category and subcategory. The icons are shown in the same order as in the map legend.
The properties panel shows the details of what you selected. When no icon is selected, it shows the details of the set itself.
The toolbar at the bottom switches the properties panel between three tools.

The heading buttons

the icon editor heading buttons

From left to right, here is what each button does:

analytics (the chart button) opens the analytics page of the set. It’s visible only if your team has reports enabled.
add icons (the + button) lets you pick icon files from your computer. You can read more about it in Adding and arranging icons.
site, line and polygon change how the icons are previewed in the grid: on a single place, along a route, or inside an area. You can read more about them in Styling icons.
import replaces the icons of the set with the ones from a file.
export downloads a copy of the set to your computer. Both import and export are explained in the importing and exporting section.
Icon set details shows up only if your space has a page that displays an icon set. It opens the page of this set, so you can see it the way your visitors do.

the icon editor toolbar

From left to right, the toolbar has three tools:

Data is for the information about your icons: their names, descriptions, categories, and the questions people answer about a site. See Editing icon details.
Design is for how your icons look on the map: their colors, sizes, labels, and when they show up. See Styling icons.
Translate is for writing the names and descriptions of your icons in other languages. See Translating icons.

The selected tool is highlighted in blue.

Editing the icon set properties

To edit the set itself, click on an empty space in the icon grid so no icon is selected, then pick the Data tool from the toolbar. The properties panel will show the details of the set:

To help you better understand what each field does, here is a list with explanations:

Identity
- name is the title of the set. We suggest including your project’s place, theme or organisation, like Glasgow’s COP26 Icons or Recovery Icons.
- cover is the picture shown on the icon set card. A square picture works best.
- description tells people what the set is for. It’s also the right place for credits and terms of use, especially if the icons were designed by someone else.
Visibility
- is public lets people outside your team see and use the set. Leave it off while you are still working on your icons.
- is default marks the set as one of the platform’s default sets, which are added to every new map. Only administrators can change this option, and a default set must also be public. If you think your set should become a default one, contact Green Map System at info@greenmap.org.

To change a group of fields, press its Edit button, make your changes, and press save. Each group is saved on its own.

Your changes won’t save or apply right away—you’ve got to hit that save button first! Otherwise, they’ll vanish faster than a “free parking” pin on a Saturday morning.

If you want to change how every icon of the set looks, pick the Design tool instead. You can find out more in Styling icons.

Importing and exporting an icon set

Exporting saves a copy of your set on your computer, with all its icons and their translations. You can keep it as a backup, or use it to copy the set to another team.

To export a set, press the export button in the heading. Your browser will download a file ending in .iconset.json.

To import a set:

Press the import button in the heading.
Choose a file that was exported from an icon set.
Since an import replaces the icons of the set, you will be asked to confirm:
If you press Yes, the icons will be imported. When it’s done, a message tells you how many icons were added, updated and removed, and how many translations were imported:

Here is how an import changes your set:

an icon from the file with the same name as an icon in the set updates that icon
an icon from the file with a new name is added to the set
an icon of the set that is missing from the file is deleted

Because the icons are matched by their name, an icon that was renamed in the file counts as a new one, and the icon with the old name is deleted.

An import can delete icons, so export your set first to keep a backup. If any of the icons that would be deleted are still used by sites or surveys, the import is stopped and nothing changes. The message will list the icons that are still in use.

Viewing the icon set analytics

If your team has reports enabled, the chart button in the heading opens the analytics page of the set. There you can see:

how many times the set was viewed, and by how many different visitors, for the time range you choose from the menu on the top right
the most used icons of the set, and how many times each one is used

Deleting an icon set

An icon set can be deleted only if you have edit rights to it. To delete a set:

Navigate to your team dashboard.
Press the arrow next to the open button on the icon set card to open the menu:
Press the delete button.
You will be prompted to confirm the action:
If you press Yes, the icon set will be deleted. Note that you won’t be able to recover it later, so if you might need it again, export it first.