Add OOTB ability to zoom to a particular map scale and see what scale you're at

[danan]

In ArcMap, you can zoom to whatever scale you like, you always know what scale you're at, and you can choose from a drop-down of commonly used scales--or define your list of common scales for the drop-down box. AGX has a drop-down of "named" scales that I don't find very useful--something like World, Country, etc.

If it's a stretch to display the numeric map scale OOTB or provide a freeform zoom to scale box, then at least provide an option to turn it on. GIS for Everyone should not be synonymous with  GIS for Dummies. I haven't used Google Earth, but does Google hide the map scale and disallow zooming to the scale of one's choice? One might say that people use AGX mostly to consume web services (and these have fixed scales). But AGX also allows one to add local data (shapefiles, gdbs, etc). It's frustrating to be able to do that, yet not have any control over which scale one is at.

There is an experimental Add-in for some of this (great start), but it needs to be core OOTB functionality:

http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/6529-Specify-an-arbitrary-map-scale-to-zoom-to-in-ArcGIS-Explorer-9...

[Anonymous User]

Kory Kramer‌ 

I am inquiring if this might be added in the next-gen ArcGIS Online?  I know LODs have traditionally dictated the zoom levels.  But with vector basemaps now hopefully this can be implemented in next gen ArcGIS Online and webmaps and this could enable support across all products (Story Maps, Dashboards, WebApp Builder, templates). 

Engineers and other professionals expect to be able to zoom to 1:60 scale for example. So the absolute scale should always be able to be displayed above the scale bar in every viewer type; as an option. And users should be able to zoom to whatever scale they want. I suggest in almost every case, making it where they click the absolute scale and/or scale bar, to trigger opening a panel that allows setting the absolute scale. That is intuitive.

This ties in with redesigning the scale bar, and consideration of conveying scale, projection and where the bar is accurate for example (those would be optionally; for power users perhaps; hidden by default; and of lesser importance than simply being able to manually change scale)

WebApp Builder: allow absolute scale and scalebar at same time 

https://community.esri.com/ideas/11740?commentID=72340#comment-72340 

[Anonymous User]

This is a decade old... I would note the importance of controlling scale to true end users, such as engineers etc who often ultimately make funding decisions for GIS department purchasing.