Building Map Items Data File Format

The list of map items (graphics) in Cityographer is determined with this file.  The default/built-in file is here.

It is a simple properties file where each line is a key and a value, where and equals sign separates the key and value on each line.

The first line’s key must be “mapitems” and the value is a tab separated list of all the key values for all the map items in the system.  It results in a very long lint.

This is followed by a set of 4 keys for each map item: the name, tags, file and credit.  The name is the name of the graphic displayed to the user.  The tags are additional words used to describe that building/graphic. These are used in the search box above the map items in the Cityographer user interface.  The file is the filename. And the credit is a note about who created the graphic.  Here is an example:

Academy.name=Academy
Academy.tags=medieval building scholarly
Academy.file=resources/buildings/Academy.png
Academy.attribution=Keith Curtis for Inkwell Ideas

A bit more on the filename values: The default file entries are values used to get the graphic from within Cityographer.  If you add custom values you may have something like “C:\My Documents\My Folder\mygraphic.png.”  Also, this path can be relative to where your mapitems.properties file exists.  You can keep the properties file and all the graphics in the same folder and it will look there for them.  You can then zip your folder of graphics and properties files and move them to a new computer.