Our team is working hard to build powerful mapping software for the future. In September, we announced that Mapbox Editor would be deprecated and that projects will become read-only on January 31st, 2016. Fortunately, you can migrate the same maps you created in Mapbox Editor to our newer tools (Mapbox Studio and Mapbox GL JS) for continued editing and maintenance.
These newer tools work a bit differently than Mapbox Editor and may require writing some code. Transitioning a project from Mapbox Editor will require adjusting to a new workflow, but the resulting project will be more customizable than ever.
This blog post contains steps for recreating the most common type of project users created in Mapbox Editor: a map showing several points of interest and popups that appear when the points are clicked. Studio and GL JS work a bit differently than Mapbox Editor and may require writing some code. Check out this example, and take a look at the additional guidance and documentation in the steps below.
1) Download your Mapbox Editor data
To move over one of your Mapbox Editor projects, you can download the features from your project as a GeoJSON file from your Classic projects page under the Mapbox Editor Projects tab.
2) Draw and edit your data
In the Mapbox Studio dataset editor, you can create a new dataset and upload your GeoJSON. After uploading, you can continue to draw and edit data features and their properties. Check out the Get started with the Mapbox Studio dataset editor guide to see what you can do with the dataset editor. After you have finalized your data in the dataset editor, you can Save and Export your dataset as a tileset to be used in the Mapbox Studio style editor.
3) Add your data to a map
The Mapbox Studio style editor allows you to style your map, including any custom data you would like to add. On the Styles page, you can create a new style using one of the Mapbox default styles. Then, you can add a tileset as a new layer in any Mapbox Studio style. Check out our guide on how to Get started with the Mapbox Studio style editor to learn how to style your data, including adding symbols and changing the color of polygons and lines.
Alternatively, you can also use the Datasets API to load your features on a map and style this new layer programmatically with Mapbox GL JS.
4) Add interaction (including popups)
Unlike Mapbox Editor, you’ll need to use Mapbox GL JS to add popup functionality in code rather than through the interface. If you are new to writing code, you may want to explore a resource like Codecademy to learn more about how front-end development works before diving into Mapbox GL JS.
The Mapbox GL JS code you write will be much different than the shareable embed code that was available with Mapbox Editor, and in most cases, you will not be able to copy and paste this in the same location that you used to have your embed code. Once you feel more comfortable with JavaScript, you can browse our Mapbox GL JS examples to implement different interactions, including adding a popup on a click.
Need some extra help?
Mapbox Studio and Mapbox GL JS differ significantly from Mapbox Editor, but your future maps will become more flexible by distributing the workflow across multiple tools. If you need help migrating your Mapbox Editor projects, visit our Developer Network, a community of developers fluent with Mapbox tools that are available for a wide variety of projects.