Create and manage Legend directly in the Layout View

[JurajKrumpolec]

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.

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 example

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:

Provide serious Undo functionality.Related idea: https://community.esri.com/ideas/3660

[JamalNUMAN]

Great idea!

If ESRI manage to meet all the ideas, then i think ArcGIS will be perfect.

Slow process in enhancement: too little too late!

what do u think?

[Arlington_CoGISMC]

This is without a doubt the coolest Idea i've seen on here yet!

[BillEveringham]

What a time saver that would be!

[JoshWhite]

This would be a great enhancement, one of the best I've seen created on the Ideas website.  I hope they listen.

[MarsSjoden]

Okay you need to be hired at ESRI, and put in charge of UI enhancements.

But not before the OpenSource Community gets you to keep your ideas non-proprietory! ^_^

Great Work Duri!

[GraemeBrowning]

Many excellent ideas here! 

I'd been thinking along more modest lines, and was planning to simply suggest a cleaner separation of existing legend properties, so that those related to a single layer all became properties of that layer, which would enable the legend properties to deal only with how the legend parts related to one another.

I think much of that thinking and more is covered by your idea.

[emadeldoy]

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[RandallOlden]

I came on the Ideas website to promote multi-line legend text enhancements, but this idea is so comprehensive and so much more than what I had in mind. This is absolutely in line with what a modern piece of software should be able to do. I spend so much time digging through all the awful buried menus in the desktop software. Make this happen!

[AllisonSeiwert]

This is exactly what ArcGIS needs! I never use the Legend Wizard because it takes way too much time messing around with it to get what you want.  Make this happen! What a great idea!!

[mattwilkie]

Awesome presentation of a great idea Duri. Great job of thinking about the core of things and not simply rearranging deck chairs! Thank you so much.

Adding a Table of Contents style management panel for managing graphic elements and layers to the proposed interface would solve a lot of deep issues. Yes this is could be a separate idea in it's own right, but what makes Duri's idea so great is that it pulls together into a cohesive whole a hundred distinct issues and problems and solves them all at once. This should be part of that pulling together energy, not dissipating.