The Dictionary

Help guide · Updated June 25, 2026

What this is. The Dictionary is where you define the kinds of things you draw on the map. A "type" is a name (Campsite, Trail, Water source), an icon, a color, and an optional set of custom fields. Once a type exists, drawing a feature of that type takes one tap — and the form you fill in is the one you designed. Out of the box you get a sensible starter set; from there it's yours to shape.

Open the Dictionary

The Dictionary lives in the More menu — the three-dot icon at the right end of the toolbar.

The More menu opened, showing Tools, Activity, Explore 3D, Dictionary, Offline data, and other items. — Tap **More**, then **Dictionary**. (You can also see the **Map tools** toggle at the top of this menu — that's where the types you define here actually get used.)

Three dictionaries, one for each geometry

The dialog has three tabs across the top — one per shape you can draw on the map.

Dictionary dialog open on the Point tab, showing existing types (Campsite, Point of interest, Water, Restroom) and a New Type form with name, icon picker, and color picker. — Point tab: types for individual pins. Each row is one type, with its icon and color preview.

Point — individual pins. Campsite, Point of interest, Water source, Restroom, anything you want to mark at a single location.
Line — trails and routes. Trail, Road, Road Ride, MTB Ride, Stream. Use these for anything that has a path: a hiking trail you walked, a forest road you drove, a bike route you rode. When you record a track with GPS or trace one by hand, it's saved as a line of the type you pick here.
Polygon — bounded areas. A camp area, a no-go zone, a marsh edge. Use these when "the whole region" is what matters.

Line tab showing Trail, Road, Road Ride, and MTB Ride types, each with a distinctive icon and color. — Line tab — your inventory of trail and route flavors. Each type carries its own color; whichever one you pick, the trail or route you draw or record will appear in that color on the map.

The anatomy of a type

Tap an existing type in any list to expand its editor. Every type has the same four parts.

Edit Type form for Campsite showing name field, icon picker grid, color picker row, and a collapsed Attributes (0) section. — Editing the built-in **Campsite** type. Same form as **New type**, pre-filled.

Name — what you'll call it when you draw one. Keep it short.
Icon — picked from a fixed grid. Used everywhere: on the map, in the picker when you tap to draw, in feature lists, and in the watch app.
Color — picked from the swatch row. Drives the icon tint and (for lines/polygons) the stroke and fill.
Attributes — your custom fields. Optional. Skip them and features of this type get a generic name+comment form; define them and you control exactly what gets captured.

Tap Save to commit your changes, or Cancel to bail. The red trash icon next to a type in the list deletes the type itself — existing features keep their data but lose the type definition.

Designing your own fields

The Attributes section is the real power of the Dictionary. Tap Attributes to expand it.

Attributes section expanded, showing 'No fields. Features of this type get the free-form name+comment form.' and an Add field button. — Empty state. The default form is just name + comment — fine for many things, but you can do better.

Tap + Add field to add a custom field.

Single attribute field configuration showing key, label, type dropdown set to Text, Required checkbox, reorder arrows, delete icon, and a hint/placeholder field. — One field. Repeat **+ Add field** for each thing you want to capture.

Each field has these knobs:

Field	What it does
key	The internal name (e.g. `waterType`). Stored with the feature and used when you export. Use camelCase and no spaces.
Label	The human-readable name shown in the form (e.g. Water type). Edit freely.
Type	How the input renders — Text, Number, Boolean (a checkbox), or Select (dropdown).
Required	If checked, the user can't save the feature without filling this in.
Hint / placeholder	Optional gray helper text inside the input — handy for examples or units ("e.g. spring-fed", "GPM").
↑↓ reorder	Change the order fields appear in on the form.
Trash	Delete the field from this type. Doesn't affect existing features.

For Select fields a "Options, comma-separated" input appears so you can list the allowed values.

Design the form for the field, not the database. Field labels are what you see while you're standing in a downpour trying to log a thing. Make them obvious — "Source type" beats src_t, even though src_t is what gets saved.

Creating a brand-new type

Below the list on any tab is the New type form — same fields as Edit, but blank.

Give it a name.
Pick an icon. The first row tends to be the most recognizable.
Pick a color distinct from anything you already have, so it stands out on the map.
(Optional) Expand Attributes and add your custom fields.
Tap + Add to commit. The new type appears in the list and is immediately available in the drawing tools.

What about the Polygon tab?

Polygons work the same way — name, icon, color, attributes — but the starter list is smaller because the use cases are narrower.

Polygon tab with one type: Camp area, using a green tent icon. — Out of the box there's just **Camp area**. Add your own as needs come up — burn scars, group sites, areas to avoid.

Tips

Edits sync to your account. When you're signed in, your dictionary syncs to your other devices and to the Apple Watch (the watch uses your icon + color to render features). On the watch, your dictionary is what makes one-tap capture possible.

Required fields can be a trap. Marking too many fields Required slows down capture in the field. Reserve it for the one or two things you'll always regret not having later (date, severity) and leave the rest optional.

Deleting a type is safe-ish. The features you've already drawn keep their saved data — they just lose their type. The icon falls back to a generic pin and the custom fields turn into a flat key/value list. So if you want to clean up an unused type, you can.

Up next

Map tools→

Now that you've designed your types, the Map tools toggle in the More menu is what lets you actually drop them onto the map — point taps, line tracing, polygon drawing, and the Watch's one-tap capture.