Ability to sort symbology on a third field, not alphabetical

[ThomasWhitfield]

In geology, geologic formations do not occur in alphabetical order. Rather they usually occur in chronological order, oldest to youngest. When symbolizing geologic or other maps, I would like the ability to sort the symbology order by a third field. I have a field in the attribute table which is a chronological order field, sorting the geologic formations youngest to oldest by number.

As it stands now, I must sort each symbol designation one at a time, by hand. Some of our maps have over 100 geologic units. It would be so much nicer if I could tell ArcMap to sort symbology based on another field. It would also have utility in the base legend and dynamic legends.







 

 

[RichardFairhurst]

It should be noted that this request is not simply to use multiple category fields in a layer (which is supported with the "Unique values, many fields" option), but to use multiple fields within predefined symbol Styles.  Support for this feature would requre additional options for the Sytle Manager editor as well so that the multi-field symbol styles could be developed and edited in the first place.

[RoseF]

Yes please! We usually do as @RichardFairhurst suggests and use "Unique values, many fields" option but the problem is that when we have to change one of our "rank" values, it can impact upwards of 150 other units and their "values".

If there was a way to export a style quickly in Pro (hopefully coming soon), it wouldn't be that big of a deal but the ability to sort on a field that you aren't using for symbology would be really, really, REALLY helpful and save us hours of time on every project.

[KoryKramer]

@RoseF I don't think you added your kudos to this one. Please be sure to do that!