What determines this icon choice?

[terrypin]

Maybe this will be obvious, but it's puzzling me. When I enter co-ordinates and fly to that location I get the familiar 'faint cross' symbol shown here:

GE-Symbol-1.jpg

If I then right-click it to open its properties, it always changes to the last icon in the Icon window. In my case at present that's the 'house' symbol:

GE-Symbol-2.jpg


For other placemarks I'm sure it's always the more logical last icon used. So why not in ths case too? Is this default user-settable, or is it always the last one in the array?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[T.Dooley]

Hi Terry

First, on posting, please supply placemark as attached kml/kmz OR as text: 51 03.495'N,0 01.625'W - It took me, more than one minute , had to manually put in the coordinates in GE in the correct format, from your image, to initially find your originally spot and place of the issue. Thanks

At the moment I dont see the change in icon. I'll try more experiments.

Tom

[terrypin]

Hi Terry

First, on posting, please supply placemark as attached kml/kmz OR as text: 51 03.495'N,0 01.625'W - It took me, more than one minute , had to manually put in the coordinates in GE in the correct format, from your image, to initially find your originally spot and place of the issue. Thanks

At the moment I dont see the change in icon. I'll try more experiments.

Tom

Thanks Tom, but I'm not referring to any specific placemark. The situation I described was when entering (typically pasting) co-ordinates and then flying to that location.

Try pasting this 51 03.495'N,1 01.625'W and follow the procedure I desccribed. (I avoid locations very close to the Meridian; they can give very stange behaviour!)

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[Munden]

I can't duplicate the behavior you're seeing, Terry. I'll list what I'm doing so you can make sure I'm doing exactly what you're doing:

1) Open up the properties window on any placemark with a difference icon.
2) Close that property window.
3) Enter coordinates in the Fly To tab.
4) Click on the icon in the main imagery window and open the properties window.
5) Check the icon.

For me it remains the boxed cross.
I'm running Google Earth 6.0.3.2197

[Appletom]

Tom's "it took me a whole minute" post is hilarious. Well played sir, well played.

I can duplicate Terry's scenario (cross turns to house) every time. I'm using GE 5.2.1.1588 here. I'll try at work tomorrow, I think I've got version 6 there.

Interesting - that "cross2house" behavior only happens if I type in coordinates ( 32°43'24.61"N, 117° 9'53.35"W for Tom). If I do a search for San Diego or 79912, left clicking and choosing properties keeps the cross.

[terrypin]

Munden:

Thanks, but those weren't the steps I described. Try this:

1. Open GE (5.2.1.1588 in my case; I reverted because I strongly prefer its Street View behaviour)

2. Paste some co-ordinates into the Fly To box, such as those I gave:
51 03.495'N,1 01.625'W

3. Click Begin Search or press Enter to fly to that location.

4. Right-click the icon ('cross') and open its properties.

5. What icon do you see? Here, it changes to the 'House' icon.

Appletom:

Thanks for the test and confirmation. Maybe it is a version issue.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[Appletom]

I just tried it at work using Google Earth version 6.0.3.2197 and the cross stays a cross.

Now it would be interesting to go and delete the House icon (in v 5.x) and see what happens when you choose Properties.

[Munden]

Munden:

Thanks, but those weren't the steps I described. Try this:

1. Open GE (5.2.1.1588 in my case; I reverted because I strongly prefer its Street View behaviour)

2. Paste some co-ordinates into the Fly To box, such as those I gave:
51 03.495'N,1 01.625'W

3. Click Begin Search or press Enter to fly to that location.

4. Right-click the icon ('cross') and open its properties.

5. What icon do you see? Here, it changes to the 'House' icon.

Appletom:

Thanks for the test and confirmation. Maybe it is a version issue.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I don't plan on installing an older version of GE, so I'll just let the rest of folks talk it out. I did try your steps first, but couldn't get the issue to occur. When it was mentioned that someone thought it might be related to the last icon, I thought I'd at least give it a go. It sounds like it's not a problem with the current GE at least.

[Appletom]

OK, where do the Google Earth icons hide on my computer?

[T.Dooley]

OK, where do the Google Earth icons hide on my computer?

I think all common icons, like water.png, is fetched from
http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/water.png

While homemade icons are put in
C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Application Data\Google\GoogleEarth
At least if you edit the placemark related.

Google Earth
6.0.3.2197
Build Date
5/17/2011

[terrypin]

I just tried it at work using Google Earth version 6.0.3.2197 and the cross stays a cross.

Thanks - a definite version issue then.

Now it would be interesting to go and delete the House icon (in v 5.x) and see what happens when you choose Properties.

Is it possible to delete GE's built-in icons? And that house (hotel, home, etc) has always been one of my most frequently-used icons. No big deal anyway, but a curious bug...

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[terrypin]

OK, where do the Google Earth icons hide on my computer?

Extract from my post
http://www.gearthhacks.com/forums/sh...g-custom-icons

I found all the built-in icons (167 of them in my case) in the folder
C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\client\res\shapes
so I thought maybe I could place copies of my new ones there. But oddly it appears that GE doesn't access them there (or C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\plugin\res\shapes ) but gets them online?

As Tom says, they are all online and therefore presumably downloaded at the start of every GE session? And not deletable?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK