Tell me more ×
Geographic Information Systems Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for cartographers, geographers and GIS professionals. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 0 down vote favorite

I received a .shp polygon file. When I choose the edit toggle tool in QGIS the little red X's appear as expected. Then when I try to edit the polygons such as add a polygon all seems to go well, when finishing with a new polygon the dialog box for the attributes appears which allows entries and then upon closing the new polygon disappears. Also when trying to use the node tool it looks like a node can be moved but not really. Or any other editing such as editing the attribute by selecting a polygon with the information tool, the usual table appears and not the dialog table which allows entries into the attribute variables for the selected polygon. The file is not read only, other files are in the same directory which are editable. Any ideas what the difficulty is?

share|improve this question
1  
check the shapefile and containing folder (including .dbf, shx and .shp file) is NOT read only. – Mapperz♦ Aug 7 '12 at 21:04
As noted, the files are not read only. Other files in the same folder are editable. Also I think in QGIS when editing a file, nothing is done to the original file until one saves the file. I figure this is true because the undo command works with all the operations in an editing session. – HealthMaps Aug 8 '12 at 23:55
   
Are topological editing and intersection avoiding enabled? Also you may try to save this layer as another file and try to see if it is editable. Try another GIS (SAGA for example) to edit this file to see if the problem is in QGIS. By the way you didn't mention your QGIS version. – SS_Rebelious Aug 9 '12 at 12:55
Did you check the attributetable if there is a new record created? Perhaps, your legend isn't set well, so the polygon is not shown in the mapwindow. – PieterB Aug 9 '12 at 13:13
on Windows 7 users sometimes do not have sufficient privileges to make changes to the file do to security settings - this can be overridden/changed with admin privileges. – Mapperz♦ Aug 9 '12 at 13:38
show 4 more comments

Know someone who can answer? Share a link to this question via email, Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.