ESM 263 Geographic Information Systems

Configuring QGIS

Before we start using QGIS, we’ll configure some default behaviors that will make our lives easier.

CONTENTS

• Configuring QGIS
  • Start up QGIS with a new project
  • Use default datum transformations

Start up QGIS with a new project

QGIS normally starts up displaying news and miscellaneous hooyah where the map would be. We’ll skip this stuff and go straight to a fresh empty map:

1. Select Settings→Options…
2. Select General tab
   • Un-check Application→Show QGIS news feed on welcome page
   • Set Project Files→Open project on launch to New

Use default datum transformations

Normally QGIS will ask you to select a datum transformation when you load a new layer into your map. 99.44% of the time, this is more tweaking than you care about. We’ll tell QGIS to just use the “best” transformation for the layer’s coordinate system:

1. Select Settings→Options…
2. Select Transformations tab
   • Un-check Ask for datum transformation if several are available

Note: We’ll show you how to override this for those 0.56% situations where you really care which datum transformation to use.

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[more here as the course progresses…]