Around views and navigation

One configured Base can power an embedded map of related notes, open a note in its full collection, and follow notes as you switch between them.

Show only the notes around the current note

In Advanced Maps settings, open Open in map and choose your reusable Base under Base file. Run Insert a map of the notes around this one. The command adds an Around map view to that Base when needed and inserts:

![[places.base#Around]]

The view keeps only:

• the note containing the embed;
• notes it links to;
• notes that link back to it.

Tracks and photos linked from those matched notes are then drawn normally. A trip index can be as simple as:

# West Lake weekend

[[Broken Bridge]]
[[Leifeng Pagoda]]
[[Lingyin Temple]]
[[weekend.gpx]]

![[places.base#Around]]

Because weekend.gpx has no !, the note shows one Around map and the GPX line appears on that map instead of creating another map below the link.

The Around view is the intersection of relationship context and the Base’s own global filters. If a linked note is excluded by the Base, Around does not bring it back. The embed also stores the view name, so renaming the view requires updating existing embeds.

Switch Insert a map of nearby notes off under settings → Open in map and the editor’s right-click menu carries no item of this plugin’s, and the command leaves the palette. Maps you have already inserted go on drawing: what is switched off is the offer to write another one.

Reuse one Base everywhere

Set Base file and View name once, under Advanced Maps settings → Open in map. The same Base then powers Open in map, Follow active note, and Around embeds.

Question	Defined by
Which notes or direct photo files participate?	Base filters
What does a note marker look like?	Base formulas and the map view’s Marker icon/Marker color options
Where is a note’s coordinate?	The map view’s Marker coordinates property

Open in map

Notes carrying the coordinate property (coords by default) get an Open in map item in their menu. It opens the configured Base, moves the camera to the note, and opens its popup.

Open in chooses a normal tab, which opens the Base file itself and keeps any view option you change there, or a pop-up window, which leaves your layout alone but has nowhere to write a change back to.

Switch Open a note in map off on the same page and no note carries the item at all, and the command leaves the palette with it. The Base file above stays configured, because the map of nearby notes is taken from the same one.

Follow the active note

Press the ⊹ control beside zoom-to-fit and that map follows notes as you switch between them. It keeps the current zoom and never rewrites the Base query.

New maps start following under settings → Map buttons decides which way that button points on a map that has just opened; it is never remembered when a map is closed. Switch Follow the active note off on the same page and the button goes, on every map already open as well as the next one.

Measure a distance

Press the ruler control under ⊹ and the map becomes a measuring surface. Click — tap, on a phone — to drop a point, and each one after the first is labelled with the distance from where you started; a dashed leg follows the pointer with the running total, while the readout that opens beside the ruler shows what has actually been placed. A phone has no pointer to lead the dashed leg, so the readout and the labels are the whole of what it tells you.

Take back the last point with ↺ or Backspace. Press the ruler again and the readout folds away, leaving the measurement itself on the map — press it once more to bring the readout back on whatever you have measured by then. Points can still be placed while it is folded.

Put the tape away with ✕ or Escape. Nothing is written to any note, and the measurement is gone as soon as you stop.

Never measure anything? Switch Measure distance off under settings → Map buttons and the ruler goes with it.

While the tape is out, clicks belong to it: a click on a pin adds a point rather than opening that note, and no popup covers the ground you are measuring across. A double-click places two points instead of zooming. Taps belong to it in the same way, and a double-tap places two points rather than zooming in.

Bring the pointer near something already on the map and a ring appears on it: a note’s pin, a track’s waypoint or start and end pin, a photo’s position, or a point you placed earlier in this same measurement. Click and the point lands on that thing’s own coordinate rather than on the pixel you could hit, which is what makes “how far is this note from that photo” exact — and what lets a route close on the place it started. The point you placed last is never offered, since a leg from a point to itself measures nothing. Hold Alt while pointing and clicking to ignore all of it and measure the bare ground.

On a phone the point still lands on the thing’s own coordinate, but there is no ring to aim by, because the ring is what hovering draws. Put the tap on the marker, waypoint or photo itself rather than near it. Alt has no equivalent there, so to measure the bare ground beside something, tap further from it.

Distances are great-circle metres between the places you clicked, which is not the same as the distance along a road or a path — for that, draw the route as a track and read its statistics. On a mainland basemap the tape measures the real coordinates behind the shifted tiles, so a measurement does not change when you switch the background under it.

Pins at the same coordinate

At close zoom, notes sharing an exact coordinate fan out into a ring so every marker can be picked out and opened, by pointer or by tap. Zoom out and they close back to the truthful shared point. Nothing is written to the notes, and copied coordinates remain unchanged. Fan out overlapping pins disables it.