Style Tab

You can style your feature by using an in-line style (a style applied as part of the feature) or a shared style (a reference to a style in the feature's document). Shared styles are used when you plan to have many feature share the same icon for example.

For example, you can apply a shared style on a folder then propagate the style to all its descendants. All features in that folder will share the common style.

Styles

Select a style that has been defined in the document.

Style maps

used to provide separate normal and highlighted styles for a placemark, so that the highlighted version appears when the user mouses over the icon in Google Earth.

Clear Inline Style...

You can clear all inline style applied on the selected feature. THis is useful when you decide to use shared style instead of inline style.

Style Url

You can choose a shared style located in an external file. This is useful if you have many kml files that should maintain a uniform look. The icon can be located on a local drive or remote network.

Icon Tab

Specifies which icon and how the icon for point Placemarks are drawn, both in the Places panel and in the 3D viewer of Google Earth.

Color, Opacity and Color Mode

You can add a color, its opacity and use a color mode.

Scale

Resizes the icon.

Hotspot

Specifies the position within the Icon that is "anchored" to the Point specified in the Placemark. The x and y values can be specified in three different ways: as pixels, as fraction of the icon, or as insetPixels, which is an offset in pixels from the upper right corner of the icon. The x and y positions can be specified in different ways—for example, x can be in pixels and y can be a fraction. The origin of the coordinate system is in the lower left corner of the icon.

x » Either the number of pixels, a fractional component of the icon, or a pixel inset indicating the x component of a point on the icon.
y » Either the number of pixels, a fractional component of the icon, or a pixel inset indicating the y component of a point on the icon.
x unit » Unit in which the x value is specified. A value of fraction indicates the x value is a fraction of the icon. A value of pixels indicates the x value in pixels. A value of insetPixels indicates the indent from the right edge of the icon.
y unit » Unit in which the y value is specified. A value of fraction indicates the y value is a fraction of the icon. A value of pixels indicates the y value in pixels. A value of insetPixels indicates the indent from the top edge of the icon.

Time Based and View Based Refresh

You can choose when the icon is refreshed.

Balloon Tab

Specifies how the feature description balloon is drawn.

Background and Opacity

Background color of the balloon (optional).

Text and Opacity

Foreground color for text. The default is black 100% opacity.

Text Editor

Text displayed in the balloon. If no text is specified, Google Earth draws the default balloon (with the Feature name in boldface, the Feature description, links for driving directions, a white background, and a tail that is attached to the point coordinates of the Feature, if specified).

Insert tag entities at cursor location

You can add entities to the text by using the following format to refer to a child element of Feature: $[name], $[description], $[address], $[id], $[Snippet]. Google Earth looks in the current Feature for the corresponding string entity and substitutes that information in the balloon. To include To here - From here driving directions in the balloon, use the $[geDirections] tag. To prevent the driving directions links from appearing in a balloon, include the text element with some content, or with $[description] to substitute the basic Feature description.

For example, in the following KML excerpt, $[name] and $[description] tags will be replaced by the name and description fields found in the Feature elements that use this Balloon Style:

This is $[name], whose description is: $[description]

Label, Line and Poly

Label

Specifies how the name of a Feature is drawn in the 3-D Earth Viewer. A custom color, color mode, and scale for the label (name) can be specified.

Line

Specifies the drawing style (color, color mode, and line width) for all line geometry. Line geometry includes the outlines of outlined polygons and the extruded "tether" of Placemark icons (if extrusion is enabled).

Poly

Specifies the drawing style for all polygons, including polygon extrusions which look like the walls of buildings and line extrusions which look like solid fences.

List

Specifies how a Feature is displayed in the list view. The list view is a hierarchy of containers and children; in Google Earth, this is the Places panel.

Background color

The background color and opacity for the Snippet.

List type

Specifies how a Feature is displayed in the list view. Possible values:

check » The Feature's visibility is tied to its item's checkbox.
radioFolder » When specified for a Container, only one of the Container's items is visible at a time
checkOffOnly » When specified for a Container or Network Link, prevents all items from being made visible at once, that is, the user can turn everything in the Container or Network Link off but cannot turn everything on at the same time. This setting is useful for Containers or Network Links containing large amounts of data.
checkHideChildren » Use a normal checkbox for visibility but do not display the Container or Network Link's children in the list view. A checkbox allows the user to toggle visibility of the child objects in the viewer.

Add

Add Icons used in the List view that reflects the state of a Folder or Link fetch. Icons associated with the open and closed modes are used for Folders and Network Links. Icons associated with the error and fetching0, fetching1, and fetching2 modes are used for Network Links.