topic Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy in ArcGIS Pro Questions

what python editors do you use for arcpy

zhongying_gan — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 02:01:56 GMT

Hello. I'm using ArcGIS Pro. I'm doing a project and I would like to be able to replicate my results in the future. Therefore, I would like to use python to run commands in ArcGIS Pro, so that with all the codes saved in a file I could replicate the results in the future.

I've already installed anaconda on my laptop. I used Spyder that comes with anaconda and when I imported arcpy, the error message says "No module named 'arcpy'". Therefore, I followed the following blog to install spyder through ArcGIS Pro: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-blog/installing-spyder-ide-for-arcpro/ba-p/901923. However, when I ran it, a console window showed up. Some messages quickly appeared and disappeared. I could only capture part of the message (spyder.png). I was unable to run Spyder. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Spyder through ArcGIS Pro. But that doesn't help. It shows in ArcGIS Pro that the version of Spyder ArcGIS Pro downloaded for me is 3.3.6 (spyder2.png). I went to anaconda and downgraded my python to 3.3.6, but I was still not able to import arcpy.

After all this I sort of giving up on using Spyder to import arcpy. I was wondering for those experienced users of python in ArcGIS Pro, what python editors do you use? And how should I make the python editor able to import arcpy?

Thank you. Any comments are appreciated.

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

DanPatterson — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 02:05:16 GMT

esri hasn't updated the version of spyder.

Install in your base environment or in your clone if you intend to use it there. Remove the old version or you will have dependency issues

>>> conda install spyder=5.0.5

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

Anonymous User — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 02:19:54 GMT

You can use any IDE/Python editor to run arcpy scripts, as long as it allows you to select the ArcGIS Pro python environment for use. For example, I use VS Code, and can set the environment to the default python environment that is included with ArcGIS Pro.

This can be set by clicking the "Select Python Environment" message:

...clicking "Enter interpreter path"...

...and entering the path of your arcgispro-py3 environment. By default this is "C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\bin\Python\envs\arcgispro-py3".

Hope this helps!

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

Deborah_Priss — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 08:54:22 GMT

If you're still considering Spyder, I had the same issue and I used this

https://www.programmersought.com/article/32855710236/

to set up Spyder. Then I start it via the anaconda navigator by changing the "Applications on" field to my cloned arcpy environment. That was the only thing that worked for me.

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

JoeBorgione — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 14:23:31 GMT

I'm in the Spyder camp (thanks to @DanPatterson ). One word of caution however; installing packages in ArcGIS Pro 2.8 is problematic. There is a bug where changing to a cloned environment does not work. I'm holding at 2.7.3 until that gets fixed. See this thread...

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

zhongying_gan — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 19:51:52 GMT

I was able to start Spyder this way. Thank you.

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

JoeBorgione — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 19:55:13 GMT

@Deborah_Priss & @zhongying_gan What version ArcGIS Pro are you using? The link Deborah provides shows Pro 2.5.

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

zhongying_gan — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 20:06:27 GMT

Hello. My arcgis pro version is 2.8.2. I didn't use the link @Deborah_Priss mentioned. I installed Python following the steps on https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-blog/installing-spyder-ide-for-arcpro/bc-p/1088109#M369. Then I started it via the anaconda navigator by changing the "Applications on" field to my cloned arcpy environment.

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

Deborah_Priss — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 14:18:14 GMT

I also use 2.8 but it worked anyway. I tried various other approaches and decided to give it a try.

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

JoeBorgione — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 14:23:05 GMT

I'm going to give this a shot.

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

JoshuaBixby — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 14:52:37 GMT

I used to be in the PyCharm camp, but lately I have been using VS Code. VS Code isn't quite as robust with debugging as PyCharm, but it is a solid IDE. Plus, I use VS Code for other development, so I prefer to use one IDE if I can instead of multiple ones.

Re: what python editors do you use for arcpy

Anonymous User — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 14:23:36 GMT

I've bee struggling to get any editor to work with Pro these days (Pro 3.02, Python 3.9). I was happy with PyCharm for a number of years, and now every time Pro updates, I think, PyCharm breaks ('no module named arcpy'). I tried to move to Spyder and had the same results. Now I have multiple environments, numerous installations of Python, reinstalled everything a few times. My hard drive is a confusing mess and I'm going back to IDLE, which I never really liked. It's the only one that consistently works with Pro.

If anyone can point me to documentation that would help me clean this all up, I'd appreciate it. I'm ready to delete everything I have and start over. Part of my problem is that I really don't understand how I have all these different environments, one of which finally worked with PyCharm yesterday but doesn't today.

Thanks!

Pam