AGX doesn't honor primary display field in layer packages

[PaulPetersen]

I'm using ArcGiS 10 and AGX 1200. When I author a layer package in ArcMap, I set the primary display field, which should control the title of the popup in AGX. However, when I load the layer package in AGX, the popup title seems to revert to the objectID, and does not use the display field I selected.

From reading the forums, I found that you can work around this by creating an attribute field called "Name", and then filling it with your primary display field. Apparently AGX automatically finds this field and uses it as the display field, whether you want it or not. It's a viable workaround, but not ideal.

Is this a known bug?

[AndreiIvanov]

Paul,

it is not really a BUG, but it is "as designed" for sure. 🙂 AGX automatically searches for field with "name" or "title" in it, if found it uses it. It is not necessary should be just "Name" in attribute field, it could be "Street_name" as well. In 1200 if such field is not found, it defaults to ObjectID, in 1500 it would use the first field with text data type. 

ArcMap does work different, though that property is set via Display settings, and it is mainly used for maptips. I will look into fixing it, but no promises it would make into 1500.

[PaulPetersen]

Andriy, thanks for taking the time to reply, and for the explanation.

I've found that AGX honors almost all layer properties authored in ArcMap within a layer package (ie - symbol, label, field visibility, field alias, scale thresholds, etc), so I assumed it would honor the primary display field too. I think it would be a great feature for a future version!:)