Snapping Order

[LindseyStone]

I have been using Pro and have a pet peeve that I'm hoping that someone can enlighten me on a workaround.  When editing depending on the legal description I have or the area I'm working in I need to re-order my layers snapping preference.  For example in Case 1: I would like it to snap first to Layer A, then Layer B, and finally Layer C.  Then in Case 2: I would like it to snap first to Layer C, then Layer A, and finally Layer B.  So I have been going into the List By snapping in the Contents pane  and moving the layers to the desired order.  The problem or annoyance that I'm running into is when I do this it also reorders by drawing order  forcing me to correct my drawing order after I get done editing so I can better see my layers.  Once I get my layer into my map I almost never adjust the order because I have default styling I use on my different layers that makes them display with each other the best way in a particular order.

In ArcGIS Desktop you could turn on classic snapping and then use the Snapping Environment Window and reorder your layers to your snapping preference without it effecting your drawing order.

My question to all is there a way in Pro where my Snapping List and Drawing order list is not connected.  So if I adjust one it doesn't automatically adjust the other?

[Anonymous User]

Hi Lindsey,

The layers lists for drawing order and snapping are hard linked without a way to reorder them individually.

Snapping priority is based on the top down drawing order.

This can be addressed in a future release.

[MichaelVolz]

Was ArcMap designed the same way?

[JohnJones]

The 'classic' snapping in ArcMap presents a different (decoupled) UI for controlling snapping order (which was actually FC based rather than layer based).  The updated snapping (introduced at 10.0, on which the Pro snapping is loosely based) takes similar steps to couple layer draw order with snapping order.  Currently there isn't a UI mechanism for snapping to overload Contents pane layer order to mean anything other than draw order and there isn't a way for the snapping engine to process layers in an order other than draw order.  Architecturally this won't be the most straightforward change to make involving at least 3 different teams.

In the meantime, you could 'fake' this by duplicating your layers in the snapping order you want and give them 100% transparent symbology and only have these layers as snap-able while your visualization layers are not snappable (although referencing the same data that is).

[Anonymous User]

ArcMap was a little different, as you may know.

The classic snapping environment gives you full control over snapping priority and hittype (edge, vertex, end) per feature class.

The arcgis snapping environment (the new or default snapping from 10.0) snaps to all visible features where the priority is based on the hitttype (end then vertex then edge) regardless of the layer order. For coincident edges, the top down layer order is used for the snapping tooltip display.