Create and manage Legend directly in the Layout View

12890
61
06-10-2011 03:23 AM
Status: Closed
Labels (1)
JurajKrumpolec
Occasional Contributor III
Significant improvements are needed in the field of Legend Element creation and management to be more interactive and flexible, to allow for faster and more effective workflow. No wizards or cumbersome dialog boxes necessary. This idea makes use of functionality proposed by https://community.esri.com/ideas/3260.

0EM30000000Cphq
Fast and easy Legend creation:
  • Drag and Drop selected layers from TOC directly to the Layout.
  • Context menu in TOC: Add to Legend/Remove from Legend options.
  • Legend context menu: Add/Remove Item.
Flexible Legend management and formatting:
  • Resizing Legend Element horizontally and vertically distributes Legend Items into columns and wraps legend text, especially labels into multiple rows.
  • More different shapes of Legend’s frame (not only rectangle). Wrap Legend’s contents around graphics in the Layout. Change vertical content’s alignment.
  • Threading Legend Elements – allow contents to flow between connected Legends in different parts of the Layout. Possibility to rotate Legend Element.
  • Edit Legend’s spacing with possibility to parametrically define each size directly in the Layout.
  • Change Appearance and Arrangement of all Items directly in Legend’s context menu.
  • Access map connection settings directly through Legend context menu. Possibility to define custom reference scale.
  • Insert special-purpose formatting objects: Line, Heading, Space, Column Break, etc.
  • Introduce overall Legend Style, which would define Legend properties and formatting including: items format, spacing between legend’s parts, title format, etc.
  • Legend context menu example0EM30000000Cphg
Interactive Legend Items manipulation, formatting and display:
  • Reorder, move or copy legend’s items directly in the Layout by drag & drop inside single Legend Element or between different Legends.
  • Possibility to replace items by drag &drop while preserving item’s formatting and settings.
  • Insert Placeholder or Proxy to temporarily take the place of currently unavailable layer.
  • Access Legend Items directly from the Layout. Apply style or custom formatting, patch shape and size to item parts, multiple items selected or the whole legend. Possibility for each item to have custom background.
  • Control display of: Item, Name, Heading, Label, Description, Patch for selected/all items.
  • Legend Item context menu example:0EM30000000Cphl

Provide serious Undo functionality.

Related idea: https://community.esri.com/ideas/3660
61 Comments
DianeFoote1
Yes Please!  I ran across this while searching for a way to do something that should be really simple and this looks great.  Why hasn't t this been implemented yet?  
GregRodger
Having a legend on mobile projects and collector would be great too!
 
by Anonymous User

Love this idea.  Such a time saver.

MartinShutt

Something needs to be done to the legend ability

AndreaRichardson1

This would be such a timesaver - sometimes I spend as much time trying to create a decent legend as making the actual map. I would like to see the ability to use text that isn't the layer name - similar to how in Symbology you can give each item a label that is different to the attributes it is drawn from. My organsiation's data is named in a standardised way, which  is great for identifying the dataset you need, but the name is often 'unappealing' in a legend, or needs modification to suit a particular use-case of a map. Currently, I can change the name of the layer in the TOC, but I don't really want to have to do this - I want to see the original names in the TOC, but be able to use a modified label for the legend.

MartinShutt

We all want this feature

ScottGunn

This idea is 7 years old...somehow I don't think it's going to happen.

JackHardwick

I've only been TAing for Intro GIS classes for a short while but one of the most common frustrations with the software I see students experiencing is the ordeal behind making a nice legend. This would alleviate many of those frustrations. Make the software easy for new users and more efficient for seasoned ones.   

JackHardwick

I just realized that myself. I'm saddened by that.

MichaelVolz

Are you looking for this functionality in ArcMap or Pro?