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Basic styling

Layer styling allows you to customize the visual appearance of your data to create clear, appealing maps. GOAT automatically assigns default styles based on your data type (points, lines, or polygons), but you can customize colors, strokes, opacity, and other visual properties.

How to style your layers​

1
In the Layers panel, click your layer. Its settings panel opens on the right with the tabs Style, Filter and Metadata, and the Style tab selected. The styling options are in the Style section of this tab.
2
Choose the styling category you want to modify: Fill Color (point and polygon layers), Stroke Color (labelled Color for line layers), Stroke Width, Line style (line layers only), Clustering, Custom Marker and Point Settings (point layers only).

Fill color​

Fill color defines the interior appearance of point and polygon features.

3

On Color use the Color Picker to select your color or the Preset Colors to choose from the predefined color palette.

4
Click the options icon Options Icon next to Fill Color to show its advanced options. Under Opacity, move the slider or enter a value between 0 (transparent) and 1 (opaque) to control transparency.
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Opacity applies to the fill only. Stroke Color has no opacity setting: outlines of points and polygons are always drawn fully opaque. Line layers have no fill, so their Opacity slider is in the advanced options of Color.

Stroke color​

Stroke color applies to the outlines and edges of map features. It helps distinguish features and enhance their visibility.

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On Color use the Color Picker or the Preset Colors to customize stroke appearance.

Stroke width​

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On Stroke Width move the slider to adjust the thickness of lines and feature outlines.

Line style​

The Line style section is available for line layers only and controls the pattern and decoration of lines.

Pattern:

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Under Pattern, choose how the line is drawn: Solid, Dashed, Dotted, or Dash-dot. When a non-solid pattern is selected, a Density dropdown appears with options Tight, Normal, or Loose.

Arrows:

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Under Arrows, choose the arrowhead direction: None, Forward, Backward, or Both. When any direction is selected, additional controls appear:

  • Placement: where the arrows are placed (Repeat along line, Start of line, End of line, Both ends, or Center (one per line)).
  • Arrow size: slider to control the arrowhead size.
  • Arrow spacing: slider to control the distance between repeated arrows (only visible when Placement is Repeat along line).
  • Allow overlap: checkbox to prevent arrows from being hidden when they overlap.

Advanced Options (expand to access):

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Expand Advanced Options to configure:

  • Cap: how line endpoints are rendered (Butt, Round, or Square).
  • Join: how corners between line segments look (Bevel, Round, or Miter).
  • Offset: shifts the line visually left or right of its actual geometry. Useful for parallel roads or directional lanes. Note: this is a visual shift only. Hit-testing and snapping still use the original geometry.

Clustering​

Clustering groups nearby point features into a single marker with a count, keeping the map readable when many points overlap.

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Enable the Clustering toggle to activate clustering for your point layer.
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Use the Cluster radius slider to control how close points need to be to merge into a cluster. A larger radius groups more points together.
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Optionally, expand Advanced Options to further configure Min cluster size, Max zoom to cluster, Cluster color, and Text color.

Custom markers​

For point layers, you can use custom markers instead of basic shapes.

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In the styling menu, turn on the Custom Marker toggle to enable custom markers
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Click on Select Marker and browse the icon library or upload your own marker by clicking on the Custom tab and uploading your file (JPEG, PNG, or SVG format).
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Name your icon (this name will be used for searching). You can later click on Manage icons to rename or delete uploaded icons
13
On Size adjust the marker size using the slider

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You can only edit the color of icons from the library, not uploaded custom icons.

Point settings​

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Under Point Settings, on Size adjust the radius using the slider or enter precise values in the text box for exact control.

Copy and paste style​

The Style tab of a layer's settings panel has three quick-action icons at the top to manage styles across layers: Copy Style, Paste Style, and Set as Default. This lets you apply a consistent look across multiple layers without reconfiguring each one manually.

1
In the Layers panel, click the layer whose style you want to copy. Its settings panel opens with the Style tab selected.
2
Click the Copy Style icon at the top of the tab.
3
Click the target layer in the Layers panel and click Paste Style at the top of its Style tab to apply the copied style.
4
Optionally, click Set as Default to save the current style as the default for future uses of this dataset.
Smart styling

Explore attribute-based styling for advanced visualization options based on your data values.