The Style Builder dialog is the central place for designing, editing and applying styles to your vector data layers in the GIS Editor. You can use it to apply a single style or composite many styles together for a highly customized appearance. Any combination of styles that are appropriate for your data type (i.e., polygons, lines or points) may be composited, including class breaks and filters.

This dialog consists of five main sections: the Ribbon Bar, the Style List, the Style Editor, the Visibility Range Controls and the Preview. At the bottom of the form are the Action Buttons that let you save or discard your changes.

The ribbon bar runs across the top of the Style Builder dialog and provides access to actions that you'll use often. These controls are always present no matter what type of style you're building and are organized into several groups.

You can use the style library to save custom styles that you've put together for easy re-use later. The library includes a number of sample styles, which you can use to quickly apply an attractive look to common elements like roads, cities and waterways.

Load From Library - Loads a pre-built style from the style library. When a style is loaded this way, it replaces all styles currently shown in your style list.

Save To Library - Saves the collection of styles shown in your style list to the style library.

Contains some common controls to help you quickly add, remove and rename styles. These typically take effect on the style which is currently highlighted in blue on your style list.

Add Style - Adds a new style to your style list. Clicking the top half of the button will immediately add the default style type (typically an Area Style, Line Style or Point Style). Clicking the bottom half of the button will open a dropdown menu that will let you choose the specific type of style that you want to add.

Delete Style - Deletes the currently highlighted style from your style list.

Rename - Renames the currently highlighted style.

Duplicate - Makes a copy of the currently highlighted style and adds it to the top of your style list.

Clear All Styles - Deletes all of the styles from your style list and allows you to start fresh.

The Help button simply displays this article.

The style list displays a hierarchical list of component styles that make up the style you're building. It operates like a treeview with the ability to expand or collapse different style nodes, which lets you focus on the details of a particular style or see all styles laid out at once. The topmost node of the style list is the “container” for all the styles listed beneath it, and it is this node whose name will be shown on your Layer List under the layer it's assigned to.

You can think of the style list as a cross-section of a sandwich, showing all of the various “layers” from bottom to top in the order in which they'll be seen on your map. The style at the top of the list will be drawn on top of the styles that are beneath it, so if you are designing a custom look that includes several different styles, you'll want to arrange them in your list accordingly. To help you visualize your styles, the Preview box at the bottom right corner of the dialog will show you a small representation of how they will be drawn.

To rearrange styles in the list, you can simply drag and drop them with your mouse. Alternatively, you can right-click on any style and choose “Move up”, “Move down”, “Move to top” or “Move to bottom” from the context menu.

The style editor offers a variety of controls that let you configure the style that you have currently highlighted on your style list. Each type of style has a different set of controls, allowing you to choose different colors, outlines, sizes, offsets and many more parameters. This is where you'll do the majority of your work while in the Style Builder.

For more information about the controls available for each style type, see the following articles:

• Area Style
• Line Style
• Point Style
• Class Break Style
• Filter Style
• Value Style
• Custom Point Style
• Font Point Style
• Dot Density Area Style
• Label Style
• Filter Label Style

These controls allow you to set the scales from which the style you're building will be displayed on the map. For instance, you might create a style for a national highway network that consists of thick lines with dark borders. These lines might appear too thick when your map is zoomed out too far. To correct this, you could set up two different styles – one set for when you are zoomed in past a certain scale, and another set for when you are zoomed out above that scale – and display them at the appropriate times by setting their Visibility Ranges accordingly.

This area shows you a real-time preview of the style that you are building. As you make changes to the settings in the Style Editor, the preview will update to show you the revised appearance.

OK - Saves your style changes and closes the Style Builder. Your map, if visible, will be redrawn to take the updated styles into account.

Cancel - Discards your style changes and closes the Style Builder.

Apply - Applies your style changes and redraws your map, while leaving the Style Builder open so you can continue to make edits.