Disable or move the "templates not listed" notice, or somehow stop the templates from jumping around so much!

[jcarlson]

This is a minor issue, but one that happens often enough, and is quite irritating. It goes like this:

1. I open the Create Features pane.
2. I think that I click on the template I need.
3. The "Click here to see templates not listed" notice shows up, pushing the entire templates gallery down
4. My click is at this point registered, so what I thought was a click on a template invariably ends up being a click on the layer header, not the template
5. The layer header collapses the template group
6. After the list of templates changes, that notice goes away, shifting everything up
7. I think click on the layer header to expand it again
8. The "Click here to see templates not listed" notice shows up again, once more shifting everything down
9. My click is registered on the template above the layer heading I wanted

The main problem here seems to be that this message goes away and comes back any time the gallery changes, causing the items in the pane to jump around. And for whatever reason, your click only "counts" after the message appears, so if you're a little quick on the draw, you end up clicking the wrong things all the time. And I don't like it when the solution is, essentially, "work slower".

As I said, minor, but seriously annoying.

Suggested solutions:

1. Let me check a box that says "don't show this again", or else give me the ability to turn the message off entirely.
2. Put the message at the bottom of the pane so that my contents aren't constantly jumping around
3. Leave a static space for this message, similarly preventing the contents form shifting

Perhaps this is fixed in Pro 3.x already, but I'm stuck on 2.9.x at the moment. I'd love to hear that this issue is already addressed!

[bdparrick]

@Scott_Harris 

Is there a way to disable the notification entirely? I don't understand why it exists. If some of my layers aren't editable or turned on, why does it matter if there's a template not listed? I can't create features on uneditable layers anyways, so I don't see a point here.

[Scott_Harris]

@bdparrick there isn't a way to disable it, but the problem where it keeps popping back up was fixed in 3.5. Are you still seeing that as a problem?

As to why you get a notification when the layer is not editable: there are a lot of reasons why a layer could be not editable, including reasons beyond the end users control. They may not realize whey their templates are missing and the banner would hopefully help them in that case.

[bdparrick]

@Scott_Harris if a layer is beyond a user's control to edit - why show that there's a template missing? It's not missing, the layer just isn't editable. For instance, administrative or transportation layers - I can't create county boundaries or a highway line because I don't own the data nor have permissions to edit; having it show up under 'templates not listed' is misleading when it's never going to be editable.

We just updated to 3.6 today and I'm still receiving the notification when collapsing templates.

[Scott_Harris]

Hi @bdparrick

 why show that there's a template missing? It's not missing, the layer just isn't editable.

In that case, the template is actually being filtered from the Create Features pane. It exists in the map and can still be modified in the Manage Templates pane for future use. 

having it show up under 'templates not listed' is misleading when it's never going to be editable.

One suggestion: If you know the template is not needed in your map, you could delete it from the Manage Templates pane.

Regarding your video: check out the GIF that was posted at the top of this idea originally. Prior to 3.5 the notification was closing itself and then reappearing every time someone collapsed a group without closing it using the X. In your video, it looks like you are hitting the X manually and then it comes back when you collapse a group. Hopefully the 3.5 and beyond behavior is less annoying 🙂 but feel free to log your idea about turning off notifications in Create Features.

[bdparrick]

@Scott_Harris unfortunately deleting the templates still causes it to show up in the 'templates not listed' because now it doesn't have a feature template. Would love if that worked! It just creates more problems.

[Scott_Harris]

@bdparrick oh yeah! that's not going to work for you then. Sorry for leading you down the wrong path. I agree there is room for improvement with this banner popping up when you don't want to see it.