What's Here

Pozi’s Info Panel displays a set of results called “What’s Here” whenever the user clicks anywhere on the map, but not directly on a vector feature.

Any datasets that you configure as What’s Here datasets will always appear in the Info Panel, as long as the active profile includes them. Users can see results for What’s Here datasets without having to turn on specific layers first.

When a user clicks on the map or draws a line or polygon selection, Pozi creates a spatial target against which all What’s Here datasets are queried. If the user does a single click on the map, the target appears as a special icon. If the user uses the region or line selection tool, the target appears as a dashed line.

Pozi fetches any intersecting features from the available What’s Here datasets and displays them in the Info Panel.

Typical use cases include:

• properties
• administrative zones
• work zones
• council wards
• other location-based reference datasets

What’s Here vs Standard Layers

What’s Here datasets can be configured separately from standard layers. When working with large datasets such as property, consider configuring both a What’s Here version and a standard version of the layer in your QGIS project to cover a range of use cases.

In this example, we’ll use a property layer as the source for both a What’s Here dataset and a standard layer. Configure the two layers with different names, following the naming convention suggested below.

When to use each approach

• Use a standard layer when the layer’s main purpose is map display and the user may want to turn it on and off.
• Use a What’s Here layer when the user should be able to click a location and always receive results, even if the layer is hidden from the layer panel.
• Use both when you want a visible map layer for context and a separate click-to-query dataset for information results.

Standard Layer

• primary purpose is visualisation
• appears in the layer panel, and the user can turn it on or off
• configuration:
  • use a plural naming convention, for example Properties
  • don’t enable WFS if the dataset is large enough to overwhelm the browser when loaded in full
  • make the layer not queryable because the info results will be handled by the separate What’s Here dataset below

What’s Here

• the dataset is considered to be a child of the What’s Here target on the map
• always returns a result when the user clicks on the map, regardless of whether the Properties layer above is turned on or not
• can be hidden from the layer panel
• can be configured to be searchable using the optional searchFields keyword
• configuration:
  • use a singular naming convention, for example Property
  • enable WFS
  • configure the layer keywords as follows

Configuration

Standard

The standard configuration for a What’s Here layer uses the What’s Here target, ie a click on the map, to generate a standard spatial intersection query.

parent=Whats Here, showInLayerControl=false

Notes:

• The absence of any parameter keyword in this configuration lets Pozi know that the parent/child relationship is a standard spatial intersection.
• The Whats Here keyword does not contain an apostrophe.
• It is not practical to configure point layers for What’s Here using a standard intersection query because a typical What’s Here target, ie a click on the map, is unlikely to intersect exactly with a point feature.

Custom

If a standard intersection query is not suitable, you can configure a custom spatial query using the parameter keyword.

For example, a custom query can add a buffer to the What’s Here target to return any features that are within a specified distance.

parent=Whats Here, parameter=EXP_FILTER=intersects(@geometry [$comma] buffer(geom_from_wkt('[$wkt]') [$comma] 0.001 ))

If the source dataset is projected, ie not longitude/latitude, use a transform function to ensure the intersection query uses the matching coordinate system.

parameter=EXP_FILTER=intersects(transform(@geometry[$comma]'epsg:7855'[$comma]'epsg:4326') [$comma] buffer(geom_from_wkt('[$wkt]') [$comma] 0.001 ))

These examples enable the What’s Here results to return any features from the layer that are within approximately 100 m, specified as 0.001 of a degree, of the What’s Here target.

The [$comma] token is required in place of a normal comma because QGIS treats a normal comma as a keyword delimiter.

Use this decimal degree table to choose approximate degree values for your required distances:

Further information about custom child dataset configuration can be found here.

End Result

Users can click anywhere on the map and get information for that location for any layers that are configured with What’s Here, regardless of which layers are currently turned on.

Additionally, users can use the line and polygon selection tool, as well as Ctrl+click for adding spot locations, to select features in a specific area.

Optional Settings

These settings provide an override for some of the default layer behaviours in Pozi. Append any of these overrides to the keyword setting, separated by commas.