A friend has given me an mmo file with a lot of data on it. It was nice of him but it's a real mess! I'm trying to organize the data into something easier to handle.

I'm having problems doing basic drag & drop operations;-

The windows convention of being able to select multiple files by holding shift or cntrl whilst clicking does not work. How do I select multiple files to drag to a new category?

I've used some 'temporary' categories to enable easier handling but after deleting empty categories, they are still there!

In order to help with the drag & drop, I've tried to temporarily rename categories to move them to the top of the list. After renaming, they do not appear alphabetically i.e. A category called 'Wales' is renamed to 'aaa Wales' because I want to appear nearer the top of the list. This does not work - it stays at the bottom of the list!

I really don't like to import/export feature for overlays. To my mind it should be set out in a more conventional way i.e. File Open, File Save, File Save As. Import would then be useful to 'merge' data files. Just a suggestion!

There is currently no way to drag multiple items in the overlay boxes. To manage large files, it would be easiest to export as a CSV file and manipulate this file.

Thanks for the reply.

Are there any documents that show how the CSV file is made up? I imported mine into a spreadsheet and have 14,500 lines of gibberish!

Do you have any comments on the other two issues that I mentioned please? Namely not being able to delete categories and categories not putting themselves in into correct alphabetical order.

Thanks
Village Thing

Hi,

You should find the data format if you search for "CSV" (don't try to use the index) in the embedded help file.

Yes, not having "block" (Shift/Ctrl) functions is an utter pain. You really have to "manage" your categories right from the start.

You should find that the "empty" and alphabetical categories "sort themselves out" after you close/reopen the Overlay Properies window, or at worst when you close and reopoen MM.

Oh, and IMHO don't even attempt to do anything with the Waypoints category (as opposed to Marks), just leave it firmly closed!

Cheers, Alan.

Export the overlay as a CSV and then open in spreadsheet software.

You should see something like:

WP04, 53.88739722, -1.121425, 19, Acaster Malbis (eY/vN), , ,0, 0, Acaster Malbis, 1, 0, BHQs, 1
WP04, 51.82362321, -1.515346159, 19, Akeman Street (eU/vN), , ,0, 0, Akeman Street, 1, 0, BHQs, 1

That is two rows from a file I use.

14 columns, where we have: WP04,Lat,Lon,Symbol,Name,Comment,File,Radius,Display,Unique,Visible,Locked,Category,Circle

'comment' and 'file' are not required (empty in the example above). 'unique' may also be left blank.

'category' in the example above is the same for both entries. As you plan to use different categories within the file I'd suggest grouping all entries for the category together. When using large files I've had problems importing a csv that had quite a few categories and the entries mixed. Put your categories in the order you want them to appear (alphabetical or otherwise).

When you've got the csv as you want it, delete all overlays from MM and then import your new csv - with luck (a pre-requisite with MM for years now) all will be as you wanted/expect.

When sorting your overlays, you can create subcategories while working with the CSV file. In the CATEGORY field use a colon (:) to separate categories and subcategories. For example, if you want a category WALKS with several subcategories (EASY and HARD), enter the category as WALKS:EASY or WALKS:HARD.

Useful tip but beware that subcategories will be sorted alphabetically within the category which can be awkward if you use the top-level category to also hold marks.