Latest Contributions by JeffThomasILM

If I'm designing a new map or app to replace an old one, I don't want to simply delete the old one that many people have bookmarked. I also don't want them to continue using the old one, intentionally or not. As determined here, you cannot swap out one item for another using the same URL. Alternatively, I'd like to repurpose the old app's URL into a redirection notice. What is the best way to that? I could put a link to the new app in a splash widget (if it's possible to edit the app - see below), but that still allows the user to dismiss the notice and continue using the old app. (This is the best hack I could come up with: http://bit.ly/AGOLRedirectHack.) I could delete or disrupt the functionality of the map the app points to, but that isn't particularly elegant. (And there are probably some bookmarks pointing directly to the map rather than the app, which is another whole issue.) It would be nice if AGOL had some sort of built-in redirection method that notifies the user of the new app and makes the old app inaccessible. Marking the old app as deprecated could trigger this capability. Currently, deprecating an item does absolutely nothing to inform someone who arrives directly at the app (never having seen the item details page) about its status. For that matter, this functionality should exist for any kind of item in AGOL. Why would you need to create a whole new map or app rather than simply updating the old one? I can think of at least 2 scenarios: 1. The old app is so old or was originally made in whatever manner that there's no option to edit it through AGOL. (that is the problem I'm currently facing) 2. You want to develop and test a new app over a long period of time before making it live. Once it's ready, you'll swap out the old for the new. The second scenario especially seems like something that would be commonly desired, yet AGOL doesn't provide an easy way to accomplish. Unless I'm missing something, which is what I'm trying to figure out. Else, this post probably ought to be changed into a feature request. Thank you for any insight! ... View more

I've seen many similar questions but somehow never found an answer that I can understand and apply to my problem. I have a layer with Census tracts. I have a layer with parcels. I need to iterate through each tract, select the parcels falling inside, do some things to the parcels (for the sake of testing, I'm trying to copy the parcels in each tract into a new feature class named with the tract number), then repeat for the next tract. The loop works, insofar as it runs through each tract and creates a new feature class that is named with the tract number. But rather than each feature class containing only the parcels falling inside the respective tract, each resulting feature class includes all parcels falling inside all tracts. I'm clearly missing some important construct in my loop. Please help! with arcpy.da.SearchCursor("tracts", "TRACT_NUMBER") as cursor:   for row in cursor:     arcpy.SelectLayerByLocation_management("parcels","HAVE_THEIR_CENTER_IN","tracts")‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍     arcpy.CopyFeatures_management("parcels", "parcels_"+"{}".format(row[0]))‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ ... View more

I just added a corresponding request to ArcGIS ideas: Option to eliminate pairs from Generate Near Table  But in the meantime, I'm wondering if anyone can help me figure out how to find duplicate pairs of attribute values from separate columns, regardless of column order, by way of SQL and/or ArcPy. The problem (described in the ArcGIS Idea above) is that the Generate Near Table tool creates pairs of distance values that are identical, as uniquely identified by the pairing of IN_FID and NEAR_FID attributes. That is, the unique distance between FID "a" and FID "b" occurs twice: "a-b" and "b-a" in the IN_FID and NEAR_FID columns, respectively. I only want one value from that pair, otherwise it affects statistics like the count and average of distances. I've found that it is possible to find these pairs with SQL: mysql - Show distinct tuples regardless of column order - Stack Overflow (I stole this question title for my post, obviously ) But of course, you can't easily break out of the WHERE clause in ArcGIS. Maybe this is possible in ArcPy, but I'm not sure how to adapt that SQL to work in ArcPy. If anyone could help me with that, it would be a boon to doing not just this specific SQL query but how to do any advanced SQL query in ArcPy (or other methods?) that's not otherwise possible within ArcGIS. Note: the near tables I've created are in a file GDB, but I do have the option of putting them in SDE if that helps. I do not, however, have the option of accessing SDE outside of ArcGIS, e.g., through SQL Server Management Studio. I'd like to learn how to do advanced SQL queries (that is, SQL involving more than just WHERE on a single layer) in ArcGIS regardless of data source. If it's possible at all. Thank you! ... View more