It is possible to create and draw maps using any combination of colors that are allowed by your computer’s display.

A normal map uses only two main default colors - these are the background land color and the sea fill color. These default colors may be changed easily, and saved as part of the standard settings which are independent of any individual map. See Editing Screen Settings for instructions on how to change the default land and sea colors, which affect all maps.

When a map is displayed, it is first drawn with just the background land color. In order to show the sea color on top of this, a variety of sea fill points have been added to each map. These are locations on the map from which the sea fill color is generated, and fills the entire surrounding region up to any coastlines, state or country borders on the map. Usually it is only necessary to have a couple of sea fill points on a map in order to correctly color all the sea regions on the map. Additional sea fill points are also included for any enclosed regions such as lakes or inland seas.

All of the maps which are initially supplied with Solar Maps already have sea fill points. However, when you zoom or move a map it is possible that you will sometimes find a region of sea which has not been filled with the sea color. In this case, it is easy for you to add one or more sea fill points to correct the problem.

It is also possible for you to add special color fills to any enclosed areas of the map, and to have these special fill colors saved with the map. In this manner you can create multicolored maps with different colors for each country or state, for example.

 

The surrounding area will be filled in with the current sea color.

 

See Making Color Selections for a description of how to use the color selection dialog.

Note that the color fill can only be done instantly if any chart lines, city and country names are removed first. If any of these items are displayed on your map before you perform a color fill, then a message will appear reminding you that the whole map will have to be redrawn in order to apply the fill color correctly. If you are adding a single fill point, then this is normally not a problem, but if you wish to add many fill points, then it is best to first switch off all the items which might interfere with the color fill process. Once you do this, the map does not have to be redrawn each time that you add a fill point, which makes the process quicker and easier. You can switch the required items back on again after you have finished adding color fill points.

If you accidentally add an incorrect fill point, then you can easily remove it.

 

Select the “Remove Last Fill“ item from the “Maps“ menu.

The map will then be redrawn with the last fill point removed, and you can continue adding fills if you wish.

It is also possible, on occasion, that when you zoom into a map the sea or special fill color may extend into regions into which they should not. (This may happen, for example, if the zoomed map is drawn with a greater level of map detail than the original map. In this case, if a fill point is very close to a coastline in the original map, it could actually fall on the wrong side of the coastline when the coastline is drawn at a higher resolution.) In this case you would be best advised to remove all the color fills and then to manually refill the new zoomed map from scratch.

 

Select the “Remove All Fills“ item from the “Maps“ menu.

The map will then be redrawn without any color fills at all, and you can add new fill points if you wish.