Highlight Editing

Turn a historical place or event into a story people can explore. Edit the highlight's opening view, build a sequence of steps, and add layers, markers, and buttons that invite visitors to WALK through the setting or TALK with its people.

Getting Started

A highlight is a curated starting point in Running Reality. It has a title, description, thumbnail, and opening place and date. Detailed steps guide visitors through a narrative, while layers and markers add things to investigate around the highlighted location.

1. Open Highlights in Projects and sign in with an account that has highlight editing access. Select an existing highlight, or use Add Highlight to begin a new one.
2. Set the title, description, image, and starting view, then build the story in Detailed Steps. Expand Layers or Markers when you need extra features.
3. Use Open Visitor View to test the experience, then arrange publication when it is ready.

Choose Save in each editing dialog to keep its changes. Controls such as reordering, copying or clearing a location, and toggling the WALK button save their changes directly.

Access and Publication

Creating and editing highlights requires the highlighter role. Editing controls are available while a highlight is in Draft; published highlights are read-only. Publication changes require an administrator. If a highlight is already published, ask an administrator to return it to Draft before you edit it, and arrange a review before publishing it again.

If controls are missing or disabled, check your sign-in, role, and the highlight's publication state. Learn about account roles or contact the team about highlight editing access.

Title, Description, Image, and Starting View

The controls above the steps describe the highlight as a whole. The opening view should establish the historical setting before visitors move through the detailed steps.

How Steps Work

A step combines explanatory text with an optional date and location. A sequence can follow an event through time, move between places, or pause at one view for a closer explanation. Each saved location includes its date, latitude, longitude, and zoom.

On larger screens, visitors see steps down the sidebar with location links. On mobile screens, they see one step at a time and move forward or backward through the sequence. Keep each stop understandable on a phone as well as a desktop.

Editing Steps

Select a step in Detailed Steps to enable its editing controls. The panel shows the text, optional image, saved location, and optional location label for each step.

WALK, TALK, and Other Step Buttons

Step buttons give visitors an action to take at a particular point in the story. Select the step first, then use the relevant control.

Show WALK Button

Choose Show WALK Button to add a WALK button to the selected step. This control toggles the button on or off and saves immediately; choose it again to remove the button.

WALK opens ground-level exploration using the step's saved location, or the current view when the step has no location. Visitors on location can explore in augmented reality; remote visitors can explore the historical scene in virtual reality. Read the WALK guide.

Show TALK Button

1. Select the step and choose Show TALK Button to open Edit Talk Buttons.
2. Enter one person's name per field. Use Add Name for additional people; each saved name creates its own TALK button. You can also use a supported object type, such as Infantry, to identify a nearby historical person or unit.
3. Choose names associated with the step's place and date, near the center of its view, and explain who they are in the step text. The names select existing historical content in that setting.
4. Choose Save, then test each TALK button in the visitor view. To remove a button, clear its name and save. Clear all names to remove the step's TALK buttons.

Read about interactive people and their sources.

Edit Action

Use Edit Action to add a custom button with Button Text and a URL, then choose Save. For example, the last step could link to a source collection, a visitor information page, or a class activity. Use a full https:// URL or a Running Reality path beginning with /, and test the destination.

Adding Layers

A layer places additional geographic information over the historical map for the duration of the highlight. You might use one to show a route, boundary, battle line, archaeological plan, or another set of features that visitors should compare with the people and events in Running Reality. Open the Layers panel to add a layer or manage the layers already associated with the highlight.

Select ADD or select an existing layer and choose SETTINGS to configure how the layer appears to visitors.

If you export a standalone map and host it on your own website, the exported HTML can include the raw layer data. You can also edit that page to add or remove layers, change their styles, or control them directly with JavaScript through the included OpenLayers map. See the embedding guide for these more advanced options.

Adding Markers

A marker is a highlight-specific pin that calls attention to an important location. Markers can identify a building, landscape feature, event location, or evidence station that visitors should investigate, and they appear only while the parent highlight is being shown. Visitors can open a marker by selecting it on the map or, when geofencing is enabled, by approaching its physical location during an on-site activity.

Select ADD or select an existing marker and choose SETTINGS to configure where and when the marker appears.

Geofenced Markers

A geofence uses the visitor's real device location to trigger a marker when they approach it. Changing a step's historical date or location is different from physically entering a geofence.

1. Expand Markers, add a marker or select one and choose Settings.
2. Enter the marker's latitude and longitude, a useful label, and its zoom threshold.
3. Turn on Geofence and enter a radius in Geofence (in meters). Choose Save, then add the marker's Image and Text.
4. Open the highlight on a phone at the real location, allow location access, and approach the marker to test its trigger. Adjust the radius for the space and the device's location accuracy. With geofencing off, visitors can still select the marker.

Geofencing works while the highlight is open and device location is available. Test the full route on location: GPS readings vary, especially near buildings and trees. Keep the marker text useful for someone who opens it manually as well.

Previewing and Sharing

1. Use Open Visitor View to check the opening date and location, read each step, and follow the sequence on both a large screen and a phone.
2. Test images, location labels, custom links, and every WALK or TALK button. Check layers at their zoom thresholds and try the visitor's opacity controls.
3. Open markers manually, then test geofenced markers on location. Confirm that the highlight shows the intended content for its selected dates.
4. Arrange publication with an administrator, then share the highlight URL or QR code from the editor's sharing panel. A link such as /?highlight=222 chooses the story to open.

For sponsored visitors, combine the highlight with the visitor access key using the Visitor Quick Start. For a class, use the Teacher Quick Start and SYNC guide. The highlight provides the narrative; visitor access and class synchronization are managed separately.

Historical Detail and Evidence

A highlight interprets the historical world; it does not add missing buildings, people, or events just by mentioning them in a step. Check the available detail at each place and date, and connect explanations to cited sources.

Use Running Reality as a secondary source for context, then follow the evidence to the underlying works. To add or correct historical content, see Editing History, the Editing Style Guide, and the approach to 3D reconstruction.

Need help with a highlight? Email the Running Reality team.