Latest Contributions by SeanHlousek

Kory, I think the idea is about having direct control over what items start a new column like we had in ArcMap where we had the option to place item in a new column.   You are correct in that you can adjust the width and height to have PRO create new columns but  this is "indirect control of the columns.   I preferred having the option to set where a new column would appear regardless of my height and widths.   One example I can give you from the oil & gas world is sometimes when making a competitor map I'd make my competitor leases start in a new column from the wells.  This would give me some legend blank space with which I could insert custom items.  (In my case I'd insert a additional dialog box showing viewers that the color of the text for the competitor leases would indicate whether the lease was Federal, State or Fee (private)).   The idea is that we had some functionality in ArcMap that we no longer have direct control over in Pro.  It's true we can fiddle with height and width - and in my example above I can create additional box(es) as graphics with the text on top but this is clunky compared to the ArcMap method.   ... View more

Loved your explanation. I'm of the same mind with Tyler.  I'm frustrated because even though we've all paid for completed software I think we are experiencing incomplete and extremely buggy software.   UI testing and QA/QC needs to be on the developers time and money, not the Users.   It says something when I'm taking time to learn an entirely new (to me) open-source GIS system because time-wise I'm getting a similar ROI to what is supposed to be the new flagship product for the GIS system I've used for 17 years. (FWIW - I've already spent a LOT of time on Tech support calls too.  I'm hoping that all of that time will help them make improvements.  However, it's disheartening when they still haven't fixed basic performance issues like table editing in 2.2). ... View more

They REALLY need to work on performance. Its one thing to force users to re-learn workflows and figure out where tools are in the new system, (or if they exist), but when you do that AND the base performance is equal to or less than the legacy product, its a MAJOR problem. I've been working primarily with Pro now for about 4 months.  There are a few things that I like, and a few "directions" where I see they are going in the right direction even if they aren't quite there.  (For Example: I couldn't stand Legends at first and I still think its anything but "intuitive", BUT, now that I've built a bunch of layouts and I understand where to find things - Legends are heading in the right direction....)   Unfortunately,  there is far more I'm VERY disappointed with.  Performance is probably top on that list but even beyond that they've made the UI more cumbersome in some ways.   For example, they have migrated workflows that were simple operations in ArcMap into tools that you have to run in PRO.  Select By Attributes and Calculate Field are two process that feel more clunky in PRO than in ArcMap - and those are CORE functions.  They might fundamentally be about the same but the interface itself takes longer in PRO.    At first I thought this was because I hadn't gotten used to it yet, but now that I've worked with the program for four months I've confirmed that it's just not as easy to use as ArcMap.   And don't even get me started on how terrible editing anything in a table is in PRO!  It's almost unusable.  I edit tables in ArcMap. I'm hanging in there and fighting through the performance and changes but I'm also exploring QGIS as an alternative for at least some workflows.  The interesting thing is that even while learning from the ground up in QGIS, the performance and difficult UI in PRO makes learning QGIS roughly similar in terms of time spent.  Plus I get to expand my skill-set. ... View more

Have you submitted this to ArcGIS Ideas? This functionality is very important and as others have said we need the ability to transfer attributes between various geometry types.   ... View more

Thanks for sharing. I'm experiencing similar results.   I've also noticed that PRO crashes regularly if my memory (which is 32GB) exceeds 50% for more than a minute.  I've noticed that when I start accumulating a lot of Layouts and Maps within a project that the project takes longer and longer to open. Right now I have a project with about 30 maps and 25 layouts and it takes twice as long to open as projects with fewer maps and layouts.   I had planned to use the same project for several years but at this rate I may need to make "versions" of my projects in order for them to open in a reasonable amount of time. Finally, I know PRO uses the GPU and I have duel Nvidia Quadro P1000's, but drawing time seems on par with ArcMap - which seems ridiculous.  I make pretty complex land maps so I expect they'll take some time to draw, but a totally re-written product like PRO should draw faster than the legacy product it's replacing.   Ideally it would draw MUCH faster.   ... View more

A alternative to this idea - which should accomplish the same goal - would be to allow users to save a "Legend Layout File".  Basically a "layer file" for Legends.  In other words, if you create a new layout (I'm working in Pro so using this as my example), and you create a Legend in your layout, you should be able to save the Legend properties as a file.  As long as a new layout contains the same feature classes/shapefile/etc that you used when creating the original "Legend Layer File", you should be able to import this schema into a new layout and apply it to your legend.  This way you'd avoid setting all of your properties again.   I like your original idea of being able to copy and paste legends but I also realize that the dynamic nature of legends and how they update with maps might present problems with copying and pasting.  Granted you could convert your legend to graphics and copy and paste all day long if you don't need to dynamically update or change the legend, which might be another alternative?  ... View more

As others have said,  the answer is having different maps.   To add to that: A trick I've been using is when I import a map (Layout), I immediately expand the contents and rename the maps referencing it. This way you can keep track of your various maps and make sure you are referencing (and editing) the correct one.  For Example: I work in Colorado a lot.  Sometimes management wants a page sized map for Power Point slides, and other times they want a wall map. I imported both versions from ArcMap and renamed the wall version "<Map>...Size_E" and the Power point Template "<Map>...Size_A".  Both maps include an inset map of the entire State of Colorado with an Extent box on them.  I renamed one of these "Colorado_Inset_Map" and deleted the second one.  I reference that same Inset map on both the wall and the power point sized maps.  I'm sure there are many examples but this is one simple one where I'm trying to leverage this new "Project work-space" environment that ESRI is bringing back with PRO.  ... View more

Advanced Symbology now lives…. Hang on…. updated to 2.2…. Okay: Open the symbology pane and you’ll have the options below. This is different from the earlier version (and improved), The Icon to the right of the one I’m showing in the screen shot gives you symbol layer drawing (which I use a LOT). The fields tab seems to be gone (at least I can’t find it). The clunky work-around I’ve discovered is to open the attribute table > click on Add Field > Delete the field you were never going to add > Now you have all of your field properties displayed. I JUST downloads V2 so there may be a much better way to get to this – if you find it please share. Hope that helps! Sean ... View more

Hey Andrew, I've worked with Annotation in Pro and found it can be frustrating as well. What I ended up doing was converting the labels to annotation and then manually editing their locations relative to the points they related to.  It was more time consuming but ultimately it gave me exactly what I wanted.  Maybe try converting the labels to annotation rather than a balloon callout?  Don't know if that would satisfy your workflow but it did work for me.   ... View more

You've got a lot of good points. I can help you with two of them: I have no problem opening and running two ArcGIS PRO projects and frequently work with more than one open.  That said, I have a powerhouse computer and ArcGIS PRO hammers my machine. It takes ALL of the duel GPU's, (I have duel NVIDA Quadro P1000's).  I have a Intel Xeon Bronze 3104 CPU @ 1.70 GHz and 32 GB of Ram. I frequently use over 1/2 when ArcGIS Pro is "thinking".  I could not run two instances of ArcGIS PRO on my old machine.  You might open your Task manager is see what it's doing to your performance.... As for the Ribbons, I can help you there for sure:  Check out the Quick Access Toolbar.  You can add buttons you normally use in your workflows and then dock it below the ribbons.  I work in Layouts a LOT and when I want to make edits I have to activate my map for a particular layout. I've found adding the Activate Map and Zoom to Layout extents buttons to be invaluable time savers.  It feels goofy at first but once you get the hang of it you can work edits pretty quickly.  If you work in Layouts like I do make sure to use Bookmarks too.  One improvement they've added is a preview of the bookmark after you create it. Its a small change but it really does help me with my workflows.   I produce 99% paper maps and I can can say without a doubt that ArcGIS PRO was not designed with paper cartography in mind. I understand ESRI's approach in that the future is digital, but in Oil & Gas we'll be using Paper for the foreseeable future and we need development of this product in that direction.   ... View more

Agreed. I have found if I fiddle with the resizing options including frame, font sizes, and columns, I can usually get the legend to behave the way I want but ArcMap's dialog is much more simple and it seems like it could even be combined into the new PRO interface.  I see the direction they are heading with Legends in PRO but it still feels very unfinished.  I have submitted ideas regarding choosing what items to have turned on by default when you create a legend as well as clicking and dragging items to rearranged them.   The Legend is one instance where, in the effort to eliminate "wizards" they seem to have created more work for users.  The Legend creation Wizard in ArcMap wasn't perfect but it worked better than automatic creation of a Legend with everything in your layout and then having to set all values, re-arrange things, clicking and dragging to set up columns and font sizes etc.  ... View more

Kory, I'm running the latest version 2.1.3. I only know that because I'm not being prompted for an upgrade. Where would I quickly find my version?  It used to be under help>about but I don't know where to find that anymore. But I believe I am current since I have it set to look for updates on each load. Part of the confusion might be terminology. I rarely work in maps. I work with maps while in layout view. Perhaps this is not the best way to work??   Here is a screenshot of the top of a simple layout I'm working in now. At the bottom, you'll see I've expanded the Map.  Typically, what I have been doing is working within Layouts and when I need to make edits or changes I scroll down into the map, expand it,  and make those changes.  What is happening is when I delete features classes or shapefiles from my expanded map, the TOC grays out, and/or I see the spinning circle for a second or two. This means for one example, that I can't uncheck multiple features classes quickly because I'm waiting for the TOC to "catch up" with the first uncheck I did. Another example is when I remove something from the expanded map, the TOC jumps back to the layout at the top (where I have my screenshot). Perhaps this is what you mean by the TOC jumping back to the layout??  If so, is there a way to change this?  I like working in Layouts because visually I find it easier to design my maps. (I work 100% with PDF's and paper maps. "Digital maps" in my office means ".pdf" or a "Power Points").  Like I say, designing paper maps and pdf's feels more natural within Layouts.  (That said, I'm still learning Pro so if I need to change MY behavior to better utilize the program I'm working in - I'm probably more malleable than ArcGIS Pro   - so let me know what you'd recommend!)   The next issue is a little more tricky to demonstrate but I'll give it a shot.  Take a look at the next screenshot: If you look at the Layout Tabs you'll see I have the Apache Tab highlighted. I've activated the Apache layout.  The layout in the main window is also Apache.  However the TOC is showing the contents for Silverton - the other non-activated Layout - the tab to the right of Apache.  I feel like when I click on a tab up top that the TOC should instantly update to the Layout I'm activating. If I try click between the two tabs a few times the TOC switches to the Layouts like I'd expect - but not right away.  The behavior I'm showing you always happens when I first open a layout and then it seems to behave as I'd expect MOST of the time... but sometimes especially if I am activating  a map within either layout and working in that map and then go to switch layouts this "incorrect TOC" behavior appears again.   Thanks for the help. ... View more