default coordnate field

HellenSimpson

It would be great to have the option to include default fields for coordinates with a point feature dataset - ideally this would automatically update when a feature is created and there would be no need for either manually updating either by using 'calculate geometry' or tool under data management.

TimBarnes

Are you talking about within shapefiles or within GeoDatabases?

Shapefiles can't (AFAIK) have their attribute table automatically updated with their geometry but featureclasses within GeoDatabases do this by default.

There is the potential problem with shapefiles that since geometry as recorded in the attribute table isn't dynamic, the user needs to be sufficiently competent to update the values before relying on them/exporting them out of the att. table as recent changes to geometry won't be included. By making things appear dynamic (i.e. automatic adding of geometry fields), it may lead more basic users to rely on attribute table values that are plain wrong.