Style
Style is the first entry of the right rail. It changes the appearance of the layer selected in the Layers panel. Select another layer and the panel follows it.
Vector and raster layers have different controls, so the panel shows what applies to the layer at hand.
Vector layers
Section titled “Vector layers”Style type
Section titled “Style type”The Style type picker decides how features get their color.
| Style type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Single symbology | One color for every feature. |
| Graduated | Classifies a numeric field into ranked classes. |
| Categorized | One color per distinct value of a field. |
| Rule-based | Your own conditions, each with a color, plus a catch all rule for everything else. |
| Advanced expression | A MapLibre expression, when the four above are not enough. |
Graduated is the choropleth. Pick a numeric attribute, a number of classes, a classification scheme and a color ramp. Equal interval is the default. Quantile suits a skewed distribution, where equal interval would put almost every feature in one class.
Categorized works best with a qualitative palette, so that neighbouring classes stay distinguishable. You can rename a class after the fact: the name you give is what the legend shows, so raw codes never have to reach your audience.
Rule-based is for the cases the classifiers do not cover, for example “red when the status is closed and the surface is over one hectare”. Each rule is a filter with a color, evaluated in order, and the else rule catches the rest.
Fill, stroke and points
Section titled “Fill, stroke and points”Whatever the style type, the base properties stay available: fill color and opacity, stroke color and width, and the circle radius of point layers.
Setting a color to transparent is a real value, not an opacity of zero: the panel shows its transparent state and you can undo it. That distinction matters when you want an outline only polygon.
Proportional size
Section titled “Proportional size”Instead of coloring by a field, you can size by one. Choose the attribute, the value range and the size range, and the panel derives a size legend so your audience can read what a big circle means.
Patterns and markers
Section titled “Patterns and markers”A polygon fill can use a pattern instead of a flat color, with your own color, or your own SVG. A point layer can use a marker instead of a circle: one of the built in shapes, or an SVG you paste in.
Labels
Section titled “Labels”Labels are their own section, with more than a font size.
- The field to label with, or an expression when the label has to be built.
- Placement: at the centroid, or along a line or polygon edge.
- Text size, color, halo color and halo width, which is what keeps a label legible over a busy basemap.
- Anchor, offset, rotation and a wrap width, to place the text precisely relative to its feature.
- Letter case, to display a field in capitals without changing the data.
- Allow labels to overlap, off by default so MapLibre drops labels rather than stacking them.
- Duplicate labels, which collapses points stacked on the same coordinate: label everything, keep one label per location, or merge the values found there.
3D extrusion
Section titled “3D extrusion”Polygons can be extruded into blocks, driven by a height field, with a scale, a base height and a color. It is the fastest way to read a buildings layer.
Zoom range
Section titled “Zoom range”Each style carries a minimum and a maximum zoom, so a layer can be styled one way when zoomed out and another way when zoomed in, or simply disappear beyond a level.
Raster layers
Section titled “Raster layers”Raster styling covers two things.
Rendering: pick a color ramp for a single band raster, reverse it, or write your own list of colors low to high. If the raster carries its own palette, the panel can read it and create a legend from that palette, one item per value, which you then rename to class names.
Adjustments: brightness, saturation, contrast, hue rotation and a greyscale toggle. These change how the raster looks, never the data underneath, and a reset button puts them back.
Legends
Section titled “Legends”The Style panel decides the colors. The Legend widget displays them, and follows your symbology automatically unless you take it over. A continuous raster ramp is better served by the Color bar widget. Both are turned on from the Gallery.