Locked Multiple Layouts in ArcGIS Pro

[MikePrice]

In ArcView 3 (AV 3) users often created multiple layouts and disconnected the live link to each one.  The AV 3 help text below briefly explains what we could do in the program.

Add a view

To create a map for output containing geographic data you must first add a view to your layout. When you add the view you can choose to make it live linked. This causes any changes in the view to be reflected in the layout. If you decide not to live link your view, it will not change in the layout even if you make changes to the view.

Layouts were not especially powerful in AV 3, but users could create multiple static objects and print them as displayed. 

In ArcGIS Pro, multiple layouts are available for within a single Pro project and multiple layouts are associated with a specific Pro map within the Project.  In each layout, the user specifies the extent, layers displayed, cartographic elements, and more.  In each individual Pro layout, the user now refines/updates the associated map, before printing or exporting the layout.  If the map is modified later, the layout changes, too.

It would be very helpful to lock individual layouts to preserve user settings and parameters, without modifying the underlying map.

I strongly recommend that this feature should be submitted as a near term enhancement.  I, and others, once used this AV 3 feature often.

[GünterLassy]

No!!!.

Not what we wanted. Look at qgis. Since you have JSON and  CIM for Layers it can be done. I've done it myself with arcpy But this is not a proper solution. This is a joke!

[DanMakridakis]

@SimonSchütte_ct  No, this is completely different than this idea.

Please add this functionality soon! Making copies of a map is not a reasonable solution when you want to update a master map that has numerous copies configured with their own layer visibility.

There needs to be an easier way to maintain a master map and create different layout views using that master.

[EuropaxEarth]

Instead of creating a separate map for the sole purpose of it being an inset map, having the inset map layers independent of the original map would be great. Of course, the work-around is to just create a new map to serve as the "inset map" but it would be nice not to do this step especially when you already have so many layers in your contents pane. 

[JesseWickizer]

If the inset map draws at different scales than the main map, you can use scale-dependent layers inside the same map. Set the visibility range for the layer (or for individual label classes) so that the map frames in your layout with different scales draw different sets of layers (or label classes).

Visibility ranges can be set for the layer from the Feature Layer tab on the ribbon:

or in the layer's Properties panel, General tab.

Visibility ranges can be set for individual label classes on the Label Class pane or in the Labeling tab on the ribbon.  

[reggis_1]

How about a way to save and then recall layer visibility in the Contents pane.

Similar the existing "Bookmarks" functionality of the Contents pane (that saves the current location and zoom level on the map for layer use), this new functionality should save the current layer visibility for every layer in the Contents pane.

These layer visibility themes, or "Visibility bookmarks" should then be accessible in the layout to create map series along with spatial bookmarks (both together, not as separate map series options).

There is a new functionality for creating map series in 3.2 that does not help as it should. It uses a new "Radio" Group Type (in the group layer pane). These "one selectable at a time only" groups in the contents pane are used to create map series. But this does not allow any flexibility as it can't be used along spatial bookmarks and managing different layer groups is very limited and encourages duplicating layers, which misses the point when symbology needs to be changed.

[Tuck]

This has been a feature of QGIS for over a decade if not longer, and people half been asking for this in this very thread stretching back many years now so its disappointing to see that it still can't be done in ArcGIS Pro. Its honestly one of the best features of QGIS and the biggest deterrent for me using ArcGIS Pro regularly.

The new thematic mapping option presented on the previous page is helpful, and its better than nothing... but its also still weak in comparison to just giving us the flexibility and convenience of managing layer visibility on a per-layout basis.

[WDFWAdministrator]

@Tuck If you're going to this years UC please stop by the ArcGIS Pro island, or whatever they're called, and find the higher ups.  Those that attend the UC have an opportunity to talk directly to ESRI's teams and vent your frustrations! 

I can tell you firsthand that it sometimes works to get a request on ESRI's enhancement schedule.

[AnnArborGIS]

We're banging our head against the wall with this issue as well.

To reiterate, the functionality we're looking for:

(1) Ability to have a map with various layers symbolized as desired (we have this)

(2) Ability to make multiple layouts that reference the single map (we also have this)

(3) Ability to toggle layers on/off locked to a specific layout that doesn't affect other layers using the map and the layer visible of the map itself (we do NOT have this)

Point (3) above is what is desperately needed.  If we want to make a new layout with a different combination of base map layers set as on/off, we have to either copy the whole project to a new file or copy the base map and all of its layers again.  The problem then is that if you make a change to symbology or other base layer properties, you then have to go back and modify it for all the base map and/or project copies.  It's really a pain and leads to errors and omissions.

Other platforms have offered this functionality for a long time. 

[JaredMitchell_RIDOT]

I think the best way to think about how this should work would be to have the program be able to save the settings of all items as they are whenever the active layout is saved.

@AnnArborGIS's post describes the situation well, but I would add to point (3) that beyond just the on/off status of the layers, it would also be good to lock the layer settings like active definition query as well.

For the municipality I worked for, I set up a pro project for creating the parcel plat maps needed by the Tax Assessor and Land Evidence offices; there are 47 individual plats which required 47 different layouts.  For the parcel boundary layer and others, I created 47 different definition queries that could be used to filter the contents for the appropriate layout...so for Plat Map 35, I would set the definition queries of the layers that needed to be filtered to definition query #35.

The layouts were all configured to have the correct map scale and dynamic text boxes needed to automate exporting the maps, but without the behavior of also having the content item settings saved, I would have to manually open each layout and change the map items to the correct definition query for each one. 

As you can imagine...having to do this 47 times for multiple layers on the map is time consuming!

The map series functionality wasn't able to be used as each layout's zoom extent and map orientation had to be manually crafted to properly display the content as each group of parcels that make up a plat presented its own unique challenge.

I have no doubt that the extra bit of functionality that was needed could probably be solved by writing some kind of script, but it would be better to have such functionality easily accessible through the existing settings in Pro.

[JackFanZhang]

7 years, 150+ Kudos, and yet there's no sign of when or whether this could be implemented in Pro. Must be very hard I guess. But hey, the free QGIS did it years ago!