The purpose of this project is to complete the static class DecimalDegreesHelper. This class offers functions to go to and from Decimal Degrees but it lacks the functions handling various formats such as Degrees Decimal Minutes and Degrees Minutes Decimal Seconds. Those formats can be output by different GPS devices and it is handy to know how to manipulate them and convert them to Decimal Degrees, the only format that can be input into a GIS or Mapping application.

This project shows how to use layers not for displaying but for getting location information on the current extent of the map. Getting information of the administrative divisions of the current extent of the map is convenient because it gives a spatial clue when the map is zoomed in too close to have any major features recognizable. In this project, we use the WorldMapKit as a background and the shapefiles state and counties are used for displaying the spatial clue.

As a developer developing a mapping application, you may encounter point based shapefile for labeling. All the characteristics for labeling such as font, size, angle, color can be found in the attribute information of the shapefile itself. This project will show how to create a custom TextStyle that will get the value for those different columns and display each feature accordingly.

In this project, we show some techniques to label features based on various columns. With the CustomStyles property and CustomColumnFetch event, you will see the flexibility you have to label the way you desire in a few lines of code. In this example, we label volcanoes based on four columns on two lines and using two different font styles.