---
id: route-planning
title: Route Planning
category: Routes
---

![Fig 1. Tapping a route brings up its actions — Modify, Start, Points, Notes, Info, Delete](route-planning-1.jpg)

Draw a route on the chart, review and adjust it, then save it for later —
or skip saving and just use it right away.

**To draw a route**, open the edit menu (pencil icon) and choose **Draw
Route**. Tap each point along your intended route. A small editing card
shows the running distance and a **Finish** button — tap **Finish** (or
press Enter) when the route is complete, or **Cancel** to discard it.
Placed a point in the wrong spot? **Undo** (the card's Undo button, or
Ctrl-Z / ⌘-Z) removes the last point, again and again back to the first.
Your new route appears on the chart in amber to show it hasn't been saved
yet.

**Unsaved and saved routes work the same way.** Tap any route on the
chart — freshly drawn or previously saved — to bring up its actions:
**Modify** to reshape it, **Points** to reorder its point list, **Hide**
to take it off the chart, **Delete** to remove it, and more. An unsaved
route also offers **Save** right there, so turning a quick sketch into a
permanent route is one tap. Saving keeps the route right where it is on the
chart — it won't disappear on you.

![Fig 2. The editing card while modifying a route — running distance, the active leg, and Undo / Save / Cancel in one place](route-planning-2.jpg)

**Modifying a route** uses the same editing card as drawing, showing the
running distance and the leg you're working on. Drag a point to move it,
drag a leg to add a point, or remove a point with Ctrl-Click or a
press-and-hold. Both delete gestures work the same with a mouse, a
touchscreen or a pen; a press that turns into a drag moves the point instead
of deleting it. To **extend the route**, click open water past its end: the
route grows by a new end point, the same way you drew it, without leaving
Modify.
**Undo** steps back through your edits one at a time. The card's commit
action saves your changes — labelled **Save** for a route that isn't stored
yet, **Finish** for one that is — and **Cancel** (or the ✕) discards them,
with no separate "save changes?" prompt to answer.

**Reordering points** works on any route, saved or not. Open **Points**
from the route's actions to drag its waypoints into a new order; on an
unsaved draft the new order is held with the rest of your draft until you
Save.

**Hiding a route** takes it off the chart without deleting it — the same as
unchecking **Show on Map** in the Routes list, but reachable straight from
the route on the chart. The route stays in your Routes list, ready to show
again, and the list's checkbox stays in step. (A route that is currently
active can't be hidden.)

The route's info panel offers the same actions — **Save**, **Edit**,
**Delete** — plus the point list, distance, and a description you can write
for the route. A route that hasn't been saved yet is labelled **(unsaved)**
so you always know its status at a glance.

If you have an extension plugin installed that helps you plan routes — an
auto-router that fits a route around land, for instance — it can work with
your route while it's still a draft, before you decide to save it.
