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Allow users to customize the list of default units in the ExB Measurement widget

berniejconnors

Currently, ExB designers have no control over the units of measurement presented in the Measurement widget. There is a predefined list of units for linear and areal measurements. The ExB designer cannot add to, remove from, or sort the list of units. We have many lawyers and surveyors that use our ExB app and they frequently must deal with old Imperial measurement units such as rods (16.5 ft) and chains (66 ft).

My idea:

In the config for the measurement widget, present a list of all the default units in a table with the unit’s name, abbreviation, and conversion factor from metres (or sq metres). Allow the ExB designer to add, remove, and sort the rows of the table. For example, linear units, the current default list of units is:

Name	Abbreviation	Conversion to metres
Inches	in	0.0254
Feet	ft	0.3048
Yards	yd	0.9144
Miles	mi	1609.3
Nautical miles	NM	1852.0
Feet (US)	ft(US)	0.3048006096
Millimeters	mm	0.001
Centimeters	cm	0.01
Decimeters	dm	0.1
Meters	m	1
Kilometers	km	1000

If I were able to edit this list, I would immediately make the following changes:

In my opinion, there is no need for units smaller than feet or metres in the mapping apps my organization will publish. Adding the units of rods and chains are useful for users referring to old deeds or survey plans.

There are several other similar "Ideas" proposed by other users - see links below. These have a total of 56 kudos as of 2025-07-09. Many people are asking for improvements to the Measurement widget. Let’s get started!

https://tinyurl.com/ym79ho3u
https://tinyurl.com/ywq9vk5l
https://tinyurl.com/yrjflwka
https://tinyurl.com/yl2fvas5

Thanks,

Bernie.

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Comments

ClintOffutt1

I agree with these recommendations, very rarely the Links unit might be used in conjuction with Chains, so that might be nice but rarely used.

I also think it is important for the the Measure widget (and/or the measure tool in the Map controls) to log or label individual segments in a multi segment linear measurement. Instead of just a cumulative "total" length, each segment needs to be logged or labeled. I suppose if we ever get the Draw widget tooltip contraints figured out, that would suffice, but surely the GIS developers for ESRI could figure this out. There are dozens of other commercial vendors offering such capabilities, including legacy ESRI products (ArcReader and ArcMap).