The advanced settings dialogue box provides you with extra tools to search the atlas files.
International Atlas
In the International atlas as it stands, the advanced settings feature has a very limited usefulness. This is because feature types are not used consistently or widely in the source data from GNS. The advanced settings feature was added to Astrolog32 mainly for future expansion.
First Search Field
There are three search fields currently defined. The first one is the type of place name. The majority of place names is of type "native", meaning in the language of the country. About 20% or so of the names are "variants". These could for example be alternate spellings of the same name, or different forms of the name. As example, "Adlershof" appears as a native name, and also as the variant "Berlin-Adlershof". The reason is that it is a neighbourhood of Berlin.
There are also non-verified names, meaning that there is a doubt about them, and finally "conventional" names, which are names of a place in a non-native language, for example "Lisbon" or "Lissabon" which are the English and German "conventional" names for the Portuguese city of Lisboa ("native" name).
Second Search Field
The second search field is the type of populated place. Ten types are defined. The most common by very far is the type "unclassified". Types of interest are the "Seat of first order administrative region", which will enable you to find the most important towns, and "Capital of a political entity", for example, Paris is the capital of France.
These types of populated places are quite strange to say the least, and are not used consistently, but that is the way they are in the source data from GNS. For details go to the GNS web site. There is no point in complaining about this to the Astrolog32 designers!
Third Search Field
The third and last search field is the classification according to the population. 97 % of the places are unclassified. This field is for future expansion, in case GNS starts using it more. In any case, class 1 would group the most populous towns in the country, and class 5 the least populated villages. Note that population classes are relative, that is a town of 100 000 could be class 1 in a country of low population, and class 3 in another of high population.
How to use Search Fields for searching places
To search for a place of a given type, tick the corresponding box. By default all boxes are ticked. There are buttons to select and de-select all types of a search field. Note that search fields are used in addition to the initial letters, as extra requirements. For example, if you want to find all the main towns whose name starts with an 'A', enter 'A' or 'a' as the initial letter in the main atlas dialogue box, and as type of populated place select only "Seat of first order administrative region". Also note that search fields have no effect on browsing by blocks.
Your selections for advanced settings are not saved in the configuration file, but are remembered by the program while it is still running, going back to the default (all types selected) the next time you run the program.
Search Fields in the list of place names
In the list box of place names in the main atlas dialogue box, names are displayed in the following format:
Name | Region % Search Fields population @ longitude latitude
Search Fields are always a three character code, the first character being the first field as defined above (type of name), the second character the second field (type of place), and the third character the third field (class of place).
In our previous example we had:
Clifden | Galway % N-- @ 10w01 53n29
The search fields "N--" then indicate it is a "native" name, of type "unclassified" and population class "unclassified".
The advanced settings dialogue box, besides providing a way to select types, also offers a legend on the different types. You will see at the end of each type a character in brackets, for example, "Native [N]". This means that 'N' in the first field indicates the name is "native", etc.
American Atlas
How to use Search Fields for searching places
To search for a feature of a given type, tick the corresponding box. By default all boxes are ticked. There are buttons to select and de-select all types of features. Note that the search field is used in addition to the initial letters, as extra requirements. For example, if you want to find all the churches and temples whose name starts with an 'A', enter 'A' or 'a' as the initial letter in the main atlas dialogue box, and as type of populated place select only "Churches, ...". Also note that search fields have no effect on browsing by blocks.
Your selections for advanced settings are not saved in the configuration file, but are remembered by the program while it is still running, going back to the default (all types selected) the next time you run the program.
Search Fields in the list of place names
In the list box of place names in the main atlas dialogue box, names are displayed in the following format:
Feature Name | Cell Name | County Name % Search field @ longitude latitude
The search field is a three character code. The advanced settings dialogue box offers a legend on the different types of features, as three characters inside brackets after the description of each feature type, for example, "Cities, towns, villages, etc [ppl]". "ppl", which stands for "populated places", will be shown in the names box for all names of towns and villages.
