---
title: "Editor interface | Guides | Map design"
description: "Understanding our map design editor, the controls, and basic concepts"
---

> For AI agents: a documentation index is available at [/llms.txt](https://docs.maptiler.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of all pages are available by appending .md to any URL.

# Editor interface

This page explains the basic concepts and controls of our no-code map design editor [Map Designer](https://docs.maptiler.com/guides/map-design/editor/) to help you get around its interface.

## Navigating the editor

There are four panels on the left, each specific to map styling: 

-   **Quick edits** (Alt + Q) to easily adjustment map color palette and fonts. See [Quick map editing](https://docs.maptiler.com/guides/map-design/quick-map-editing/).
-   **Layers** (Alt + L) for complex styling of individual or multiple layers, filtering data or writing JSON.
-   **Settings** (Alt + S) for setting global map options such as language, borders, or initial position.
-   **Data sources** (Alt + D) for adding, removing, or replacing map data sources or checking data details.

![Map Designer main panel](./map-designer-panel.webp)

## What’s what

**Map Style =** a unique map, either one of MapTiler’s default styles or your own style.

**MapLibre style/style.json** = a JSON document that defines the visual appearance of a map: colors, layer order, data sources, etc. (every map style is a `style.json` file). This is what you get when you download a map style.

**Layer =** an entity in a map containing specific map features that are styled together (Road network); takes the data from a data source layer, optionally filters features, and defines how those features are styled.

**Block** = a group of layers.

**Verticality** = order of the layers in the map; the first one is rendered on top.

**Style/Data =** style panel serves for map design/data panel handles filters, geometry, or type of visualization.

**Filter** = specifies conditions on source data; only features that match the filter are displayed in the map.

-   Filter Logic: **All** = returns `true` if all the inputs are `true`
-   Filter Logic: **Any =** returns`true`if any of the inputs are`true`
-   Filter Logic: **None** = returns `true` if none of the inputs are `true`

**Attributes** = information linked to the data that describes features and is used for filtering: class, admin\_level, rank, name etc.

**Layout properties** = define how data for a layer is passed to the GPU; icon or text size, font, offset, visibility, text-field etc.

**Paint properties =** are applied later in the rendering process and happen synchronously: color, opacity, halo, width, etc.

**Icon** = properties for styling small images (icons) representing point data.

**Text** = properties for styling text labels such as font, size, or justification.

**Fill** = properties for styling fill of polygons such as color, opacity, or pattern.

**Outline =** properties for styling lines or borders of polygons: color, opacity, width, or style (dash array).

**Layout =** influences the placement of features: anchor, padding, overlap, etc.

**Effects** = includes blur of lines.

**Default View** = defines the initial position of the map with the zoom level, map center (latitude, longitude), tilt, and rotation angle.

**Font Fallback** = a font to which your default font switches in case of unsupported characters (Arabic, Cyrillic etc.).

**Data source =** source of map features (tiles or other data formats). Every layer needs to have one.

**Data layer** = an entity in a data source containing specific map features.

**Geometry** = encoding of geographic data, related to data representation: Polygon, LineString, Point etc.

**Visualization** = specifies the styling options; Polygon, Line, Point, Symbol, Heatmap etc.

**Save** = saves a map or your changes in the MapTiler interface.

**Publish** = publishes your changes into production across all your apps where the map is embedded.