12. Map Display¶
Little Navmap uses two layers to display the map:
- Background which is defined by offline or online maps like the OpenStreetMap. You can change the background by selecting another Theme. The background maps cannot be modified or configured since they are fetched from third party online services. Little Navmap downloads pre-rendered image tiles from these services to draw the background map.
- The foreground layer which is drawn by Little Navmap and can be customized in the options dialog on the map pages. It consists of airports, navaids, airways, airspaces, measurement lines, range rings, holds, traffic patterns and all moving objects like AI and the user aircraft.
See Legend for details about the various symbols shown by the map.
12.1. Moving¶
Use click and drag to move the map and the mouse wheel to zoom in or out. Use Shift+Wheel
to
zoom in small steps and Ctrl+Wheel
to increase or decrease map details.
You can also use the overlay buttons on the right side of the map to move around.
Alternatively use the keyboard to move around the map:
- Cursor keys: Scroll the map
+
and-
: Zoom in and out*
and/
: Zoom in and out in small stepsAlt+Left
andAlt+Right
: Go forward or backward in the map position historyCtrl++
andCtrl+-
: Increase or decrease detailsCtrl+Home
: Go to home positionCtrl+End
: Go to center for distance search
Note
Do not forget to activate the map window by clicking into it or pressing
F2
before using keys for movement.
12.2. Mouse Clicks¶
A single click shows details about all map objects nearby the clicked
position in the Information
dock window. Windows and tabs are raised
depending on clicked objects.
The procedure search window can be raised optionally if clicking an airport.
This can be enabled in the options dialog on page Map. Check Show procedures on airport
click
to enable this function.
A single click on an user aircraft, AI aircraft or multiplayer aircraft
shows details in the Simulator Aircraft
dock window.
A double-click zooms in showing either the airport diagram or the navaid
closely and also shows details in the Information
dock window. The
same applies for all AI or multiplayer aircraft or ships.
The double-click and single-click functionality does not work for flight
plan waypoints or airports if the flight plan edit mode is enabled. The
edit mode can be disabled using the toolbar or Flight Plan
->
Edit Flight Plan on Map in the main menu. See also Map Flight Plan Editing.
The mouse click sensitivity can be adjusted in the Options
dialog on
the page Map Navigation.
Note
The center of the airport symbol is the hotspot for right or left click actions as well as for tooltip display. This is also the case if the whole airport diagram is visible.
The same applies to all navaids as well as airport parking spots where the center is the hotspot for clicks.
12.3. Mouse Click Hotspots¶
Map marks like range rings or measurement lines have hotspots to indicate that a modifier-click
like Ctrl+Click
can remove them or an action is available in the context menu. The same applies
to the flight plan drag and drop editing mode.
The mouse cursor changes into a hand to indicate a click
spot.
Click spots are:
- Center of range rings (small circle).
- End of a measurement line (cross).
- Runway threshold point (small circle) for airport traffic patterns.
- Holding fix (small triangle) of a holding.
12.4. Mouse Clicks and Modifiers¶
You can use the keyboard and mouse click to get quick access to the following functions:
Shift+Click
: Adds or removes range rings or navaid range rings.Ctrl+Click
andAlt+Click
: Starts great circle line measurement or deletes a measurement line.Ctrl+Shift+Click
: Add or edit an userpoint.Ctrl+Alt+Click
: Inserts an airport, a navaid, an userpoint or a position into the nearest flight plan leg.Shift+Alt+Click
: Appends an airport, a navaid, an userpoint or a position to the flight plan.
Clicking again on the hotspot removes the marks, measurement lines or flight plan waypoints.
12.5. Aircraft¶
The user aircraft and AI or multiplayer aircraft or ships will be shown on the map if the program is connected to a flight simulator. Color indicates user or AI or multiplayer vehicle and the symbol shape indicates if the aircraft is an piston/turboprop, jet, helicopter or a ship. The symbol outline changes to gray if an aircraft is on ground.
Little Navmap limits the display of AI vehicles depending on size. Zoom close to see small aircraft or boats
AI and multiplayer aircraft on ground are shown only on small zoom distances to avoid cluttered airports. This means that an AI aircraft can disappear from the map when landing on an airport.
Tip
On the lowest zoom distance all aircraft are drawn to scale as are the parking spots which means you can easily check if your aircraft fits on an apron, parking spot or taxiway.
A yellow wind arrow and labels for the situation around the user
aircraft can be displayed on the top center of the map. The displayed
labels for aircraft can be configured in the dialog Options
on
Map Display 2. No labels are shown for ship traffic.
See Aircraft and Ships for details about the aircraft type.
12.6. Tooltips¶
Hovering the mouse over the map will show tooltips for all map objects
including airports, VOR, NDB, airways, parking, fuel box, towers,
aircraft and ships. The tooltip is truncated and shows a message
More ...
if it gets too long. In that case reduce details or zoom in
closer.
The sensitivity for the tooltip display can be adjusted in the
Options
dialog on Map Navigation.

Tooltip with information for an airport and a VOR.

Tooltip with information about airspaces.
12.7. Highlights¶
Airports, navaids or other features that are selected in the flight plan table or in a search result table are highlighted on the map with a green/black or a yellow/black ring respectively.
Waypoints that are selected in the procedure preview are highlighted with a blue/black ring.
These highlight circles provide all functionality of visible map objects, even if the objects are not shown at the current zoom distance (ring is empty). This allows double-click for zoom in, single-click for information dock window and all context menu entries.
You can use Map
-> Remove all Highlights and Selections to remove all
highlights from the map.
12.8. Flight Plan¶
You can enable or disable the display of the flight plan as well as missed approaches in the menu and toolbar.
All features which are part of the flight plan are forced to be shown even if they are disabled in the menu. This means that destination, departure and alternate airport symbols as well as diagrams are shown even if airport display is disabled. The same applies to all navaids and approach ILS.
Tip
Hide all map features to get a clean view on flight plan related airports and navaids only.
12.9. Airport Diagram¶
The display will change from a single icon to an airport diagram if you zoom in deep enough to an airport. The diagram shows all taxiways, parking positions, gates, runways and more.
The airport diagram provides more information through tooltips for parking and tower positions. A right-click on a parking position opens the context menu and allows to select the start position for flight plan departure.
See Airport Diagram for details about the airport diagram.
Note
Airspaces are hidden if the airport diagram is shown.
Tip
You can adjust the visibility of airport elements like runways or aprons for diagram in the options dialog on page Map Display 2 in the tree on the right side.
Use this is you’d like to rely on the airport diagrams of the OpenStreetMap background map, for example.

High level view of the airport diagram of EDDH.

Detailed view of the airport diagram. Shows blue gates on the right and green general aviation ramp parking spots on the left. Long displaced threshold of runway 33 is visible. Dashed yellow lines indicate taxi paths.