topic Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy? in Python Questions

What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

PaulHuffman — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 23:15:32 GMT

I've been writing some python scripts for colleagues that get stuff done, but I'm forced to have the users edit the scripts to insert the data paths and file names for their situation. The best user interface I can come up with is to put these user editable variables up in a section near the top of the script. I've been looking around for a way to make user interfaces more slick, like a VB browse to data box that would allow the user to browse their directories for their input files, but haven't found the correct place. I snooped around in the docs for Python Add-ins, but decided that is not what I'm looking for. http://video.esri.com/watch/2288/developing-python-add_dash_ins-for-arcgis-desktophttp:// at 3:08 pretty much tells me there is no custom UI support in python add-ins.

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

GerryGabrisch — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 23:26:58 GMT

Why don't you turn the script into a scripting tool. This will allow the users to add parameters using a GUI which is available in ArcToolbox.

ArcGIS Desktop Help 9.3 - An overview of creating script tools

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 23:47:08 GMT

I definitely agree with Jerry on this one. It removes the need for other people to have anything else installed on their computers.

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

PaulHuffman — Sat, 06 Sep 2014 00:02:00 GMT

I think this is what I was looking for, except I'm using 10.2.2 so I found the corresponding help pages for my version. Reading the Docs now and went through the Add Script dialog. But I need to understand better the "Setting Script tool parameters" because I haven't figured out how I set a tool parameter to replace the input FCs that my python script now sets as variables from strings in the script e.g. InputFolder = "c:\\avdata\\PythonTest\\ClipLidar\\TestData\\Input"

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

DanPatterson_Retired — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 20:17:54 GMT

Check the help files on GetParameterAsText (or sys.argv in pure python) In your script you will set your input parameters as such, then in the toolbox, you give it the type. For example, here are snippets from one of my scripts and how I establish the association between the inputs and how the tools parameters need to be identified.


'''
Properties:
  (right-click on the tool and specify the following if creating your own tool)


General
  Name   mxdInfo
  Label  mxd Information
  Desc   Project information focusing on table of contents and data therein
  
Parameter list
                                Parameter Properties
           Display Name         Data type        Type      Direction  MultiValue  Dependency
  argv[1]  Select a project     Arcmap document  Required  Input      No
  argv[2]  Output textfile      Text file        Optional  Output     No


  argv[3]  Include env ...       Boolean       Optional  Input       No


'''

....... The above is part of the header section, the next is the first few lines of the actual script


import sys
import arcpy
import textwrap


arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = True


#for toolbox
mxd = sys.argv[1]                  #Notice that sys.argv[1], or arcpy.GetParameterAsText(0) is a project
output_file = sys.argv[2]        #sys.argv[2] is an output text file
envBoolean = sys.argv[3]     # a Boolean indicating whether environment variables are to be included

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

ModyBuchbinder — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 04:34:06 GMT

One
more way is to add a text file with all the data needed in the same disk location as the python script.

This is very similar to the cfg file for other software.

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

PaulHuffman — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 21:20:19 GMT

This was what I should have been reading too: Accessing parameters in a script tool

Worked great. Look, I'm a developer now!

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

PaulCrickard1 — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 22:41:36 GMT

If Python didn't run in some funky sandbox, you could use Tkinter. Last time I checked, if you clicked a button, the GUI died. C# has a System.Diagnostics.Process.Start() which could possibly be used in your GUI to execute your scripts and pass parameters. It works fine on the desktop but I have never tried it in ArcMap.

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

curtvprice — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 15:51:21 GMT

Paul, do dig into parameter validation, this allows you quite a bit of capability to guide your user to get the right inputs in place -- BEFORE they click OK and run the tool. I have used this to make a script tool with more than 15 parameters amazingly easy to use. Of course this is all covered pretty well in the help both for toolboxes and python toolboxes.... However, if you want to check it out as a real-world example of what I'm talking about, see my presentation from the Esri UC, A flexible Python script tool for stratified random site selection.

This toolbox has been posted in GitHub: https://github.com/cprice-usgs/USGS_Sample

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

curtvprice — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 15:57:03 GMT

I have seen a very successful implementation of setting up a standalone .exe in an independent process which is launched synchronously from Python - using the subprocess module. This could be done with a TkInter Python script as well to "insulate" your arcmap session from the GUI data collection.

However, I agree with Dan Patterson that in most situations, working within the out of the box GUI tools provided with ArcGIS is best because users don't need to navigate a new UI - they can use the tool UI they are used to (either in ArcGIS Desktop, or soon, in Pro). Let Esri do the work on this one!

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

IanGrasshoff — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 16:17:26 GMT

One other option that I didn't see mentioned is to turn your script into a ArcGIS Desktop Add-in. This is a little bit more advanced then creating a ArcToolbox script tool, but it does give you the ability to easily work with the ArcMap data frame/display. It really depends on what you are doing and what need to do with your script.

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

curtvprice — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 17:50:32 GMT

In Arc 10, you can add tools as buttons to the ArcMap / ArcCatalog UI. Addins are really most appropriate when you need the user to be able to interact with the map, layers, etc. Geoprocessing script tools are much more flexible as they can be used in Desktop and Pro, from Python (via arcpy) etc.

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

IanGrasshoff — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 18:48:57 GMT

Yeah..I probably should have read the original post more closely, as Paul said that he read the documentation for creating a python add-in and decided against it.

I personally have created lots of ArcGIS Python Script tools, and a couple of add-ins. They both have advantages/disadvantages like everything else. One other thing that I just remembered (not sure if this still works) but you can/could drag a geoprocessing model into the ArcMap table of contents as a "Tool Layer". It would then allow you to run the model from the ArcMap table of contents. I used this a couple of times and it worked decent, still the python script tool is probably best if you don't need to access a users map click coordinates.

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

PaulHuffman — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 21:48:26 GMT

I thought the idea with script tools was that I could zip up a toolbox containing my script tool and sent it to a colleague. But when I try it, the toolbox unpacks at the destination and the tool source still references the python script in its old absolute path. What is the correct way to distribute script tools?

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

AlexanderNohe1 — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:29:06 GMT

You could import the script into the toolbox. This would allow the script to stay with the toolbox when moving it from user to user.

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

DanPatterson_Retired — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:47:41 GMT

There is an option to use relative paths in the toolbox properties see Absolute and Relative Paths in Script Tools

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

PaulHuffman — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:53:39 GMT

Thanks, I missed that somehow. That worked for me. I had started working on a python toolbox, but this is much easier. This also answers another question I had, How can my user get the script out of the toolbox to see how it works and maybe make slight changes.

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

AlexanderNohe1 — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 23:21:48 GMT

They can then right click on the script tool and select edit.

Re: What kind of UIs are available in Arcpy?

PaulHuffman — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 17:17:55 GMT

This my project in a 10.2 toolbox and a 10.x toolbox. Hey, I thought this new forum had a place to attach zipped files. Well, I can make a link to Dropbox. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9369478/ClipLidar.ziphttp:// Oh, maybe I just had to get to the advanced editor in this forum.

The project was to export just an area of a LIDAR job by walking the directory tree of a LIDAR job, find tifs, shapefiles, and grids, clip them to an area of interest, and write them out with the same directory tree structure as the input folder, and make it run in 10.0 so without da.walk. There is some repeated code doing the clipping for each data type that might have been done in a function for extra style points, but each data type is a little different. Changed my script enough so two arguments are set by GetParametersAsText. I thought about setting env.overwriteOutput as an option in the dialog box, but then decided I always want to overwrite. Figured out how to add arcpy.AddMessage for some of the print statements I had to monitor progress.

I also figured out how to get Desktop Geoprocessing Options set so right click>edit goes to IDLE. I like this environment.