Access All Editing Tabs When Editing Multiple Symbols

[ZacharyRoy]

Context menus/tabs should not differ when editing a single symbol and when editing multiple symbols in the same feature class.

What I think

When developing symbology, it is often useful to be able to edit many symbols at once. The ability too do so increases efficiency, and ensures consistency in the symbology being developed. While developing symbology, it can be deasy to overpopulate the 'styles' workspace with un-finalized versions of various symbols. For this reason, saving to a symbol to a style is not the preferred method.

The Menus

In ArcMap 10.X, the symbol editor was identical when you were editing 1 symbol, and when you were editing multiple symbols. In ArcGIS Pro, when you are editing 1 symbol you have access to the Symbol Tab, the Layers Tab, and the Structure Tab. However, when you are editing multiple symbols (via 'Symbology' pane> 'More' drop down> 'Symbols'> 'Format all symbols') you only have access to the Symbol Tab.

Current Setup

When Editing a Single Symbol (Unique Values)

Available Options

Feature Type	Symbol Tab Options	Layers Tab Options	Structure Tab Options
Point	Scale Based Sizing Appearance Halo	Appearance (for each Symbol Layer) Position (for each Symbol Layer) Rotation (for each Symbol Layer) Offset distance (for each Symbol Layer)	Symbol Layers
Polyline	Scale Based Sizing Appearance Line Width	Appearance (for each Symbol Layer) Offset effect (for each Symbol Layer) Dash effect (for each Symbol Layer) Caps & Join (for each Symbol Layer)	Symbol Layers
Polygon	Scale Based Sizing Appearance	Appearance (for each Symbol Layer) Offset effect (for each Symbol Layer) Dash effect (for each Symbol Layer) Caps & Join (for each Symbol Layer) Pattern (for each Hatched, Gradient, and Picture Symbol Layer)	Symbol Layers

When Editing Multiple Symbols (Unique Values)

Available Options

Feature Type	Symbol Tab Options
Point	Scale Based Sizing Appearance Halo
Polyline	Scale Based Sizing Appearance Line Width
Polygon	Scale Based Sizing Appearance

[AndrewBarker3]

Thanks for taking the time to generate the screenshots.  I can't believe we can't change features that are applicable to all currently selected symbols, like border weight.  It would also be great to not only be able to set this value but also have the option to bump the current weights up or down.  That way, if differing weights are set, they all increment up and stay different sizes relative to each other.  

Outline should be accessible regardless of the symbol shape that's applied too.  

[PeteJordan]

Yep this is annoying to have this not part of Pro as it was in ArcMap.  Often I need to do create several mutli-layered symbols that are similar, but a bit different.  It would be so much nicer to be able to do this without having to create styles as it used to be like that's for sure.  I was originally thinking I was missing something, but then was directed to this post... 

[DanielMatranga]

Kory Kramer‌ any update from the Pro team on this request?

[KoryKramer]

I believe they may have started looking into a design for this functionality, but since that isn't complete, development work hasn't started yet.  We will update the status when there is higher confidence about the work being scheduled for a release.  I realize this is somewhat vague, but that is the update.  Hopefully we'll see this in a near-term Pro release (excluding 2.5 which is coming this month).

[DavidWheelock2]

Any update on when this will be implemented, @KoryKramer.

This hampers many legends that I build, forcing me to spend much time building the legend from scratch, or going back to ArcMap, building the legend there, saving it to a LYR file, and importing the LYR file to Pro.

Using ArcGIS Pro 2.8.1.

[rburke]

Thank you for so thoroughly laying this out - still no further modification options in Pro 3.0.3 (update: or 3.1). This would be a huge timesaver. I find myself not only manually adjusting each individual symbol class, but doing so over and over whenever a tweak is needed. Styles can only help so much.

[rburke]

Re:

While developing symbology, it can be deasy to overpopulate the 'styles' workspace with un-finalized versions of various symbols. For this reason, saving to a symbol to a style is not the preferred method.

I agree with you, and this would help: Delete style items from style item picker - Esri Community

Though kudos are disabled, it would help if anyone interested would comment on that post and ask that it be re-opened. The reasoning given -- that they have no plans to make things easier -- defeats the purpose of the ideas site.