idea Symbol class visibility toggles — Enable from Contents pane or by default in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Symbol class visibility toggles — Enable from Contents pane or by default

Bud — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 20:03:22 GMT

In ArcGIS Pro 3.4.0, we can toggle features on and off via symbology — in the Symbology pane (by default) or in the Contents pane (via Symbology pane > More > Use the Contents pane for class visibility).

Toggle visibility for individual Categories on Symbology tab

It's not intuitive to me to enable the toggles via the More button in the Symbology pane. I'd rather enable it by right-clicking the layer in the Contents pane and choosing an option in the context menu. Or just enable this functionality by default for all layers that are symbolized by unique values.

Re: Symbol class visibility toggles — Enable from Contents pane or by default

AlfredBaldenweck — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 17:30:17 GMT

Yeah, I think I'd prefer to just have it on at all times, tbh. Manually turning it on for each layer seems like an unnecessary step.

Re: Symbol class visibility toggles — Enable from Contents pane or by default - Status changed to: Under Consideration

EdiePunt — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 00:47:44 GMT

Thank you for your feedback. When we designed this we felt that it was not a setting you were likely to change often for a given layer, so it made more sense to make the option to edit from the Contents pane part of the setup experience for the layer symbology. We could consider adding an additional shortcut to the layer's context menu in the Contents pane. We are mindful of not overloading that context menu.

We purposely did not make this setting a default everytime a layer is symbolized with Unique Values symbology because it is not an appropriate setting for every layer and it would be distracting to have it on for every unique values layer.

Re: Symbol class visibility toggles — Enable from Contents pane or by default

Bud — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 07:39:19 GMT

@EdiePunt What if the checkboxes (unused) were only visible if the user hovers over a layer's symbology in the Contents. The user could click a checkbook while the checkboxes are visible. If at least one checkbox is checked, then the checkboxes would always be visible.

Re: Symbol class visibility toggles — Enable from Contents pane or by default

Bud — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 07:40:45 GMT

@AlfredBaldenweck Feel free to upvote.

Re: Symbol class visibility toggles — Enable from Contents pane or by default

AlfredBaldenweck — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 13:59:43 GMT

Lol sorry. I'm not sure why I didn't do that.

I like Bud's suggestion of having them there but hidden. It doesn't clutter up the screen unnecessarily, but it doesn't rely on users to track down where the setting is hidden.

My organization is several versions behind, but I can foresee getting all my users really excited for this functionality and then none of them using it because they can't figure out (or can't be bothered to figure out) where it is.

As it is, trying to get them to remove the "All other values" class when it isn't necessary is a struggle, even when they want to do it lol.

Re: Symbol class visibility toggles — Enable from Contents pane or by default

MappyIan — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 10:16:19 GMT

I agree with this idea, it's a pain to try and remember where this setting is buried, which means people don't use it despite wanting to use it.

Re: Symbol class visibility toggles — Enable from Contents pane or by default

Cory__Williams — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:42:25 GMT

I agree with this idea. It was fantastic that this is now available, but can we have it as just always on?

If not, have a setting in Options to turn this off, with the default being on.

Re: Symbol class visibility toggles — Enable from Contents pane or by default

sschmunk — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 18:32:18 GMT

Thank you all for the feedback.

Having this option always available in the Contents Pane or even creating a backstage control so that the checkboxes would always be available in the Contents Pane were two things we went back and forth on while designing this feature.

We can take into consideration the options of making the checkboxes more accessible from the Contents pane or adding an "always on" setting.