Exercise 2: Drawing Modes with UI Buttons

Let's register more drawing modes and add buttons to switch between them — including the brand-new polyline mode.

Polyline mode (new in Terra Draw v1.31)

TerraDrawPolyLineMode is one of the newest drawing modes. It starts exactly like the linestring mode, but with a twist:

• keep clicking to draw a line, then double-click (or press Enter) to finish it as a LineString — same as linestring mode
• or click the first point of the line again to close the shape into a Polygon

This mimics the drawing behaviour of many desktop GIS tools, where a single tool can produce either a line or a polygon.

Try it in the live editor

Replace the rectangle mode with point, linestring, polyline and polygon modes, then wire up the buttons. Try closing a polyline into a polygon by clicking its first point!

Live editor — open this page in the browser to run the code.

Walkthrough

Import the mode classes (note that TerraDrawRectangleMode is removed):

import {
    TerraDraw,
    TerraDrawPointMode,
    TerraDrawLineStringMode,
    TerraDrawPolyLineMode,
    TerraDrawPolygonMode
} from 'terra-draw';

Update the modes: array in the Terra Draw initialization:

const draw = new TerraDraw({
    adapter: new TerraDrawMapLibreGLAdapter({ map }),
    modes: [
        new TerraDrawPointMode(),
        new TerraDrawLineStringMode(),
        new TerraDrawPolyLineMode(),
        new TerraDrawPolygonMode()
    ]
});

Remove draw.setMode("rectangle"); so that we don't automatically start with any drawing tool:

map.once('load', () => {
    // Start drawing
    draw.start();
-   draw.setMode("rectangle");
});

Add two handler functions:

const handleModeClick = (mode: string) => {
    draw.setMode(mode);
};

const handleClearClick = () => {
    draw.clear();
};

Finally add one button per mode. In the live editor this is done with the addButton() helper:

addButton('Point', () => handleModeClick('point'));
addButton('Line', () => handleModeClick('linestring'));
addButton('Polyline', () => handleModeClick('polyline'));
addButton('Polygon', () => handleModeClick('polygon'));
addButton('Clear', () => draw.clear());

In the local SvelteKit template

In +page.svelte, the handlers go just before the closing </script> tag, and the buttons go into the sidebar <aside>:

<aside class="sidebar">
    <button onclick={() => handleModeClick('point')}>Point</button>
    <button onclick={() => handleModeClick('linestring')}>Line</button>
    <button onclick={() => handleModeClick('polyline')}>Polyline</button>
    <button onclick={() => handleModeClick('polygon')}>Polygon</button>
    <button onclick={handleClearClick}>Clear</button>
</aside>

Testing Your Implementation

1. Test drawing - click the corresponding buttons to create points, lines and polygons
2. Test polyline mode - draw a line and finish it, then draw another one and click its first point to close it into a polygon
3. Remove features - click the Clear button to remove all features

Extra challenge

Try adding other Terra Draw modes: TerraDrawCircleMode, TerraDrawFreehandMode, TerraDrawAngledRectangleMode, TerraDrawMarkerMode... The pattern is always the same: register the mode in the modes array and add a button that calls draw.setMode('<mode name>').

What's Next?

Now you can add and remove points, lines and polygons. Next, let's learn how to select and modify features.

Continue to Exercise 3