Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

MattHowe — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 13:44:14 GMT

I have a custom toolbox (.tbx) added to my favourites and so to find a specific tool within the toolbox, I 'd search (Tools > Favorites > [Type tool name] and then hopefully see the description of the tool in the results display but doesn't seem to display the metadata. Let's say I have a tool called 'Create Raster Extent Polygon' and I enter 'extent' in the search to get the result I need. It doesn't seem to display the tool description even though I have added information in all of the fields in the metadata page of the custom tool. Is there a way to show the tool description for custom tools similar to the inbuilt Esri ones? (See image for the custom tool example and the Esri tool that shows a nice tool description).

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

David_Brooks — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 09:39:28 GMT

@MattHowe , do you know, that's so strange, i've been trying to work this one out, but it might be a bug. If you create a model or script in ArcMap, and edit the Summary field in the metadata, the description appears in tools and models. Also, all my old models made in ArcMap with a summary filled out display correctly in Pro. But i've just tried to make a new model/script in both ArcMap and Pro and none of the summaries appear below the tool in the search menu in Pro, but they appear in ArcMap in the Toolhelp sidebar.

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

JohannesLindner — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 10:03:58 GMT

It works for me...

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

David_Brooks — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 10:26:47 GMT

@JohannesLindner which version of Pro are you using, and which Metadata standard?

@MattHowe have you tried a brand new toolbox in Pro? Just wandering if you're using a toolbox previously created in ArcMap?

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

David_Brooks — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 10:32:33 GMT

Scratch that, i just tried with a brand new toolbox, created a blank script and edited the Summary in item description, and nothing.

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

MattHowe — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 10:53:01 GMT

Yeah I tried exactly the same thing and the description didn't show in the search results. Interested to see what @JohannesLindner reports back with re the metadata standard.

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

JohannesLindner — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 13:04:50 GMT

Sooooo....

I use the default metadata option, which seems to be "Item description".

Like you, I just tried creating a new python toolbox, editing the metadata of the default tool and searching for that tool. Didn't work:

Then I remembered: For my work, I programmed quite a few tools (e.g. input forms). Because the tools were in constant development, I didn't want to manually edit the metadata each time I changed some parameters. So I created a custom Parameter class and gave the Tool class some extra attributes and wrote a function that creates the tool help files automatically.

def Parameter(*args, **kwargs): """Wrapper for `arcpy.Parameter` which allows for a custom attribute `description`. I can't just inherit from `arcpy.Parameter`, because arcpy is a wrapper for C classes and when I tried, it didn't work as expected. Using a wrapper class and forwarding all the methods and attributes would be too cumbersome. That's why this is a function that returns an `arcpy.Parameter`, using python's dynamic typing to add a custom attribute (which does noting in the underlying C code). """ try: desc = kwargs["description"] del kwargs["description"] except KeyError: desc = "" p = arcpy.Parameter(*args, **kwargs) p.description = desc return p

# Toolbox.pyt class Toolbox(object): def __init__(self): """Define the toolbox (the name of the toolbox is the name of the .pyt file).""" self.label = "Toolbox" self.alias = "" # List of tool classes associated with this toolbox self.tools = [Tool] class Tool(object): def __init__(self): """Define the tool (tool name is the name of the class).""" self.label = "Tool" self.canRunInBackground = False # attributes for automatically creating the metadata self.description = "This is a test tool." self.usage = "You can't do anything with this tool." self.search_keys = ["test", "another_tag"] def getParameterInfo(self): """Define parameter definitions""" params = [ ## arcpy.Parameter(name="parameter", displayName="Parameter", datatype="GPString", parameterType="Optional", direction="Input"), Parameter(name="parameter", displayName="Parameter", datatype="GPString", parameterType="Optional", direction="Input", description="This parameter does nothing."), ] return params def isLicensed(self): """Set whether tool is licensed to execute.""" return True def updateParameters(self, parameters): """Modify the values and properties of parameters before internal validation is performed. This method is called whenever a parameter has been changed.""" return def updateMessages(self, parameters): """Modify the messages created by internal validation for each tool parameter. This method is called after internal validation.""" return def execute(self, parameters, messages): """The source code of the tool.""" return def create_tool_help_files(): import os import datetime import xml.etree.cElementTree as ET today = datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%Y%m%d") for tool in Toolbox().tools: tool_instance = tool() metadata = ET.Element("metadata") dataIdInfo = ET.SubElement(metadata, "dataIdInfo") # ESRI metadata esri = ET.SubElement(metadata, "Esri") ET.SubElement(esri, "CreaDate").text = today ET.SubElement(esri, "CreaTime").text = today ET.SubElement(esri, "ArcGISFormat").text = "1.0" ET.SubElement(esri, "SyncOnce").text = "TRUE" ET.SubElement(esri, "ModDate").text = today ET.SubElement(esri, "ModTime").text = today scaleRange = ET.SubElement(esri, "scaleRange") ET.SubElement(scaleRange, "minScale").text = "150000000" ET.SubElement(scaleRange, "maxScale").text = "5000" # tool metadata toolMeta = ET.SubElement(metadata, "tool", xmlns = "", name = tool.__name__, displayname = tool_instance.label, toolboxalias = "") ET.SubElement(toolMeta, "arcToolboxHelpPath").text = "c:\\program files\\arcgis\\pro\\Resources\\Help\\gp" # Tags searchKeys = ET.SubElement(dataIdInfo, "searchKeys") tags = getattr(tool_instance, "search_keys", []) for t in tags: ET.SubElement(searchKeys, "keyword").text = str(t) # Summary und Usage summary = ET.SubElement(toolMeta, "summary").text = getattr(tool_instance, "description", "") usage = ET.SubElement(toolMeta, "usage").text = getattr(tool_instance, "usage", "") # parameter metadata paramMeta = ET.SubElement(toolMeta, "parameters") parameters = tool_instance.getParameterInfo() if parameters is None: parameters = [] for p in parameters: param = ET.SubElement(paramMeta, "param", name = getattr(p, "name", ""), displayname = getattr(p, "displayName", ""), type = getattr(p, "parameterType", ""), direction = getattr(p, "direction", ""), datatype = getattr(p, "datatype", ""), expression = getattr(p, "name", "")) dialogReference = ET.SubElement(param, "dialogReference").text = getattr(p, "description", "n/a") # Credit idCredit = ET.SubElement(dataIdInfo, "idCredit").text = getattr(tool, "credit", "My employer\nMy Name\nMy mail address") # some more general metadata idCitation = ET.SubElement(dataIdInfo, "idCitation") resTitle = ET.SubElement(idCitation, "resTitle").text = getattr(tool, "label", "") distInfo = ET.SubElement(metadata, "distInfo") distributor = ET.SubElement(distInfo, "distributor") distorFormat = ET.SubElement(distributor, "distorFormat") ET.SubElement(distorFormat, "formatName").text = "ArcToolbox Tool" mdHrLv = ET.SubElement(metadata, "mdHrLv") ET.SubElement(mdHrLv, "ScopeCd ", value = "005") mdDateSt = ET.SubElement(metadata, "mdDateSt",Sync="TRUE").text = today # write XML directory = os.path.dirname(__file__) toolbox_label = os.path.basename(__file__).replace(".pyt", "") ET.ElementTree(metadata).write("{}.{}.pyt.xml".format(os.path.join(directory, toolbox_label), tool.__name__)) # execute the file from IDE to automatically create the tool metadata files if __name__ == "__main__": create_tool_help_files()

And it works:

Please don't ask me why...

topic Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane

Re: Show a custom tool's description in the tool search results of the Geoprocessing pane