Interface and controls

A Windrose map can be worked on in two places:

Inline (block) — the map renders directly in a note, wherever you placed its windrose-map code block, including inside callouts. The tool palette sits above the canvas and the drawers dock to the side.
Full pane — the map opens in a dedicated Obsidian workspace tab, giving the canvas the whole leaf. See Full-pane view and dockable panels.

Both share the same tools and controls. In full-pane view, the side drawers can additionally be popped out into floating, dockable panels.

Tool palette

The Tool Palette contains most of what you need to create or modify a map. It sits below the map name box. Some tools appear only on grid or only on hex maps, and some appear only when their feature is enabled.

Several tools are grouped: a group shows one button, and long-pressing (or right-clicking) it reveals the sub-tools.

Select tool group
- Select: move or modify the map or its contents.
- Area Select: select multiple objects or text labels within a rectangle.
Draw tool group
- Paint Cells: color a single cell with the selected color.
- Paint Segments (GRID ONLY): subdivide a cell into 8 triangular sub-segments for half-cells, quarter-cells, and true diagonals.
- Paint Edges (GRID ONLY): paint the grid lines themselves for custom borders, walls, and subdivisions.
- Freehand Draw: create organic, non-grid-locked polygonal shapes.
Fill tool group (GRID ONLY)
- Fill Rectangle: fill a rectangle corner to corner.
- Fill Circle: fill a circle from center to radius.
- Diagonal Fill: place segments along a staggered row of painted cells to smooth a staircase edge into a clean diagonal.
Eraser tool group
- Erase: erase a single thing — cells, objects, labels, tiles, and so on. For image tiles, this works across strata: erasing a tile on any stratum of the active board switches you to that stratum, and undo restores the one you were on (see Boards, strata, and layers).
- Clear Area (GRID ONLY): delete everything within a rectangle.
Region tool group (HEX ONLY, requires the Regions feature)
- Paint Region: define a region cell by cell.
- Draw Boundary: define a region by clicking out a polygon; double-click to close.
Paint Line (GRID ONLY): paint an edge along a straight line, point to point.
Color palette: select or create colors for painting. Colors can also be defined globally in settings.
Add Object: place an object from the object drawer.
Place Note Pin (requires the Note pins feature): place a pin linked directly to a vault note.
Add Text Label: place a free-floating text label.
Draw Outline (HEX ONLY, requires the Outlines feature): draw a polygon shape point-to-point.
Place Shape Overlay (requires the Shape overlays feature): place a decorative shape on the map.
Measure Distance (requires the Distance measurement feature): measure multi-waypoint routes in configured units — see Measurement, routes, and travel.
Place Tile (requires the Image tiles feature): activate the tile system and paint image tiles. The placement sub-tool (paint, stamp, scatter, and so on) is chosen inside the tile drawer, not here — see Image tiles.
Undo / Redo: up to 50 actions. Does not persist across an Obsidian restart.

Map controls

The Windrose

The Windrose is a compass icon in the top-right of a map canvas. Clicking it changes the compass orientation. On a grid map this rotates the actual map orientation; on hex it is purely aesthetic/informational.

By default, hovering the Windrose reveals the map controls. They can be set to stay always-on in Map Settings.

The controls

The Map Controls offer sub-menus for changing how you view a map:

Expand map: expand an inline block to the full width of its note.
Zoom controls: 10%–200%. Zoom can also be driven with the scroll wheel or a two-finger pinch.
Layers: opens the layers/boards sub-menu (see Boards, strata, and layers).
Regions (HEX ONLY): opens the regions sub-menu.
Visibility: toggle parts of the map display on or off; also holds the Fog of War controls.
Map Settings: opens the per-map settings modal.

Navigating the map

The canvas can be panned in several ways: with the Select tool, click and drag on empty grid (not on an object or label); or hold Space and drag with any tool; or two-finger drag on touch.

Zoom can be changed from the Map Controls, with the scroll wheel, or with a two-finger pinch.

On a trackpad, a two-finger scroll pans the canvas and a pinch zooms it, matching platform conventions rather than treating the gesture as a wheel zoom.

Map settings

Map Settings is a modal opened from the Map Controls. Its settings affect only the map it was opened from, and where a setting has a global default, you must tick a box to override it.

Appearance

Change the object set from the global default.
Override basic grid appearance for this map (grid line color, background color, line thickness).
Configure Fog of War color or image for this map.
Set a custom canvas height (separate values for desktop and mobile).
Set picture frame dimensions for this map — height and width, each with separate desktop and mobile values (see Picture frame mode).
Change the tileset folders scanned for this map’s tiles.

Hex grid (HEX ONLY)

Set a background image.
Choose a Radial or Rectangular (offset) shape.
Set the map size — measured in rings for radial, rows/columns for rectangular.

Pointy vs Flat-Top hex orientation is a global default (see settings).

Background (GRID ONLY)

Set a background image for this grid map.

Measurement

Choose the units used by the measurement tool — standard units, or a custom unit from an enabled travel pack, so a hex-crawl map can natively measure in “hexes.”

Preferences

Remember pan and zoom for this map.
Remember the drawer open/closed state.
Remember the expanded state.
Keep map controls always open, versus showing them on hover.
Export the map as a PNG to your vault. The export dialog lets you pick exactly what lands in the image:
- Content — turn the grid, objects, text labels and (on hex maps) regions and outlines on or off. These start from whatever the map is currently showing.
- Layers — include or exclude each layer of the map, and set the opacity each one is drawn at. A simple map starts with just its active layer selected; a multi-floor map starts with the layers the current floor is showing.
The image is sized from the content of the layers you selected, plus a small margin. Objects, text labels and fog come from the active layer; saved routes and the party beacon are not drawn into the exported image.

Global settings

The plugin’s settings page opens on the Features switchboard plus a set of navigable sub-pages — settings search still finds everything inside them, and the Objects, Tile sets, and Fog of war entries show their current value at a glance. Some sections only appear when their feature is enabled:

Features — one toggle per feature (see Feature toggles and onboarding).
Hex Map Settings (requires Hex maps) — orientation and hex defaults.
Color Settings — default grid colors and appearance.
Color Palette — define reusable colors for the palette.
Fog of War (requires Fog of war) — global fog color/image, and a Browse button for downloadable fog texture packs.
Map Behavior — general behavioral defaults.
Distance Measurement (requires Distance measurement) — default units.
Travel Packs (requires Distance measurement) — create, edit, enable/disable, export, and import travel packs.
Tile Sets (requires Image tiles) — the Add tiles wizard and your list of tileset folders.
Object Types — customize objects and categories, and a Browse content packs button for downloadable object sets.
Keyboard Shortcuts — view and rebind shortcuts.
Developer — a Developer mode toggle (off by default) that shows diagnostic commands — performance telemetry, input event probe, zoom trace, canvas capability report — in the command palette.