Purpose of the Map
The map shows public paths and other routes, and is provided to help you discover where you can walk or ride in the District. We aim to provide an up to date record of routes that are available to the public, but this is not the Definitive Map and must not be relied on as a legal record for searches or other formal purposes.
Please contact the Countryside & Rights of Way Service if you need to consult the legal record for other purposes, such as land charges searches or planning applications.
Some of the features of the map application are explained below. Please take some time to look through this information if you have not used the map before or if you encounter any problems.
The Map of Paths
Please read this if you have not used the map of paths before!
The maps application requires you to download a plug-in to view the maps and paths. This is a small piece of software that will allow your internet browser to view and manipulate the information. The link to map of paths above will take you to a disclaimer page, and at the foot of this page is a link to the plug-in. You can use this link to download plug-in directly from the Council’s server. Alternatively, if you choose not to download the plug-in from the Council’s website, your browser will prompt to you to download one when you attempt to open the maps application. You will be directed to the vendor’s website to download the appropriate plug-in.
Important information about the plug-in
You will only need to download and install the plug-in once.
It is advisable to save the plug-in (to your desktop, for example) when you download it. The download is approximately 3mb and should take less than a minute to download with a broadband connection, or less than ten minutes with a dial-up connection.
Once downloaded, double click the file (mgcontrol654.exe) and follow the instructions. Installation is automated, and should be quick and simple.
Please note: The plug-in on the Council’s website is designed for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Windows. Other plug-ins are available from the vendor’s website (www.mapguide.com), however users have little success with other browsers and plug-ins, for example Mozilla Firefox and the recommended Netscape plug-in. It is advisable to switch to MS Internet Explorer when using the map of paths.
Basic Commands
The basic map commands are provided by a number of buttons at the top left hand corner of the map view. The commands also available on the pop up menu. This menu appears when you click the right button on your mouse when the cursor is in the map view. The commands are summarised below.
| Button | Command | Description |
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| Copy | Copies the current map view to the Clipboard. |
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| Select | Switches the cursor to the select tool. Use the select tool to find the information about path features on the map. For example, hover the select tool over path lines to reveal the parish, path number and type. |
| 
| Pan | Switches the cursor to the pan tool this allows you to move the map around to display areas that are outside of the current view. Press the mouse button and drag to move the map around and release it to redraw the map and show the new view. |
| 
| Zoom In | Switches the cursor to the zoom in tool. Click the mouse button to zoom in by a magnification factor of two on the point that you click, or zooms in to the rectangular area you draw with the mouse. Press the mouse button and drag a rectangle across the area you want to zoom in to. Release it to redraw the map and show the new view. |
| 
| Zoom Out | Switches the cursor to the zoom out tool. Click the mouse button to zoom out by a magnification factor of two from the point you click to display a larger area of the map. |
| 
| Zoom to Previous | Returns to the previous zoom magnification and location. |
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| Zoom Goto | Zooms to a specified address, street or postcode. |
| 
| Zoom to Full Extent | Zooms out to display the Bradford District. |
| 
| Stop Drawing Map | Stops or interrupts the map display from updating and map layers from downloading. |
| 
| Autodesk MapGuide Help | Opens the online Help to get information about viewing maps. This will opened from the Autodesk MapGuide Web site. |
Street Gazetteer
The street gazetteer is in the panel to the right of the map view. This can be used to search for a particular street, address or postcode. Select the option you wish to search by and type the location in the text box below, then click on the ‘Go!’ button or press enter. The map view will zoom to the location or will give you several alternative locations to choose from. For example, for ‘Main Street, Stanbury’, choose the ‘Street’ option and type ‘Main Street’. This will find all the ‘Main Streets’ in the District and display them in a window. In this window, scroll down until ‘Main Street, Stanbury’ appears and click on it. The map will then zoom to this location.
Map Legend
The map legend is to the left of the map view. It can be resized by moving the right hand pane to the left or right. There is also the option to show or hide the legend using the option below the street gazetteer to the right of the map view. The legend shows what information is currently being displayed in the map view.
The information is organised in layers, which are like transparencies that can be stacked and viewed together, or viewed separately. For example, one layer contains paths, another contains roads, and another contains the base map. The legend gives you the option to turn some of the layers on or off, depending on what information you would like to view.
Ordnance Survey Base Maps
The countryside and rights of way information is displayed against a series of Ordnance Survey maps. Different base maps are used for particular scale ranges and will turn on and off as you zoom in and out. Generally, as you zoom in more detailed, larger scale maps are displayed.
Please be aware that there may be differences between the features shown on the OS maps and the overlaid information. Occasionally this will be noticeable when a map layer has been captured from large-scale maps and is overlaid on small-scale OS base maps. For instance, the layer for footpaths and bridleways was mainly captured from 6 inch to the mile maps (1:10,560). The paths are also drawn on the OS Landranger (1:50,000) but when the two are displayed together they do not always line up. This is because of the different levels of generalisation between the two.
Scale Limit
The most appropriate scale to view the paths layer is 1:10,000. At this scale, the modern 1:10,000 OS base map will be displayed in the map view. It is possible to zoom in to 1:8,000 so that the text on the base map can be read more easily. However, if you zoom in further than 1:8,000 your session will be interrupted by a warning asking you to zoom out to a smaller scale. The map view has been set up like this because the paths layer is not designed to be viewed at a large scale. This warning may also appear when you use the street gazetteer to go to an address or street because the map view may zoom in too closely.
There are different ways to zoom out to an appropriate scale if the scale warning appears. You can use the zoom out command described above, or you can use the text box at the bottom right hand corner of the screen to zoom to a preset scale. Select a scale (either 1:8,000, 1:16,000 or 1:36,000) and click the ‘Go!’ button the view map will zoom out to that scale.
Resolution
Sometimes when you zoom in the resolution of the OS base map is poor or appears ‘blocky’. This is a feature built in to software to speed up zooming in. Resolution can be improved by panning the map slightly, or by right-clicking on the map view and selecting ‘reload’ from the menu. Both methods cause the map to reload and appear at a better resolution.
Printing a Map
A map layout can be printed from the map view. Right-click in the map view and select ‘Print’ from the menu. This will give you the option to print the map straight away (select ‘Print’ again) or to customise your map layout (select ‘Page Setup’). If you choose to customise your map you can print it by clicking on the ‘Print Setup’ button or going back to the ‘Print’ option described above.
