Digitizing and Editing Vector Data - Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools - page 72

Figure 5.2: QGIS with new layer ready to edit

the pop-up menu. 2 A small pencil with a little scribble trailing from
it will appear over the layer's icon in the legend to indicate that we
are now in edit mode. Before we start editing, we need to make sure
the digitizing toolbar is visible. If not, right-click in the toolbar area
of QGIS, and choose Digitizing from the pop-up menu. In Figure 5.2 ,
the digitizing toolbar is visible (it's on the second row of the toolbar
area). You'll notice that some of the buttons are disabled (grayed out),
in particular the point and line buttons. This is because QGIS knows
we are editing a polygon layer and won't allow you to create the wrong
feature type. In addition to creating polygons, there are tools for starting
and stopping editing and editing existing features. Let's start digitizing
by clicking the Capture Polygon tool.

First we will digitize the boundary of largest lake in our map view (it's
the big one to the west). An important thing to remember when digi-
tizing is to choose an appropriate scale for creating features. To get a

In QGIS 0.9.x, the Allow Editing menu option has been renamed Toggle Editing . 2.