Latest Contributions by RichardFairhurst

What distinguishes this idea from using the Follow Feature option for Annotation?  I don't understand how this idea differs from that option. ... View more

Another comment about using Symbol Maneger to help create and maintain the everything and the kitchen sink layer for an end user that needs everything imaginable.  Perform a disolve of your feature class on the symbol Code field   Choose one feature in the disolved layer and make a copy of it.  Blank out the code and copy that feature for as many additional features as you need to store all of your possible codes.  Then edit the uncoded features to store each additional imaginable code value you can think of.  When finished match the code to the Category of your dummmy feature class layer to your symbol set you have createdd with Symbol Manager.  Import the symbology from the dummy layer into your end user layer.  Ship it to the end user. Periodically, the dummy feature class can be joined or related to the actual data source to check for new codes you need to account for that you failed to think of.  A Dissolve of the selection set of new coded values can be pasted in your dummy feature class.  Also add any more code you may for see with the secondary copy method described above.  Add the symbols listed in the new Dissolve and you other new codes into Symbol Manager and rerun the category symbol match.  Import the dummy layer symbology to your end user layer so that all used and potentially used values are available in it.  Ship the new end user layer to the end user. Nobody can imagine every possible code that can be generated in the world, including you, me or ESRI.  You know more about your domain than they ever will, but with Symbol Manager and the above dummy feature class you should be able to maintain something that works for you. ... View more

Another comment about using Symbol Maneger to help create and maintain the everything and the kitchen sink layer for an end user that needs everything imaginable.  Perform a disolve of your feature class on the symbol Code field   Choose one feature in the disolved layer and make a copy of it.  Blank out the code and copy that feature for as many additional features as you need to store all of your possible codes.  Then edit the uncoded features to store each additional imaginable code value you can think of.  When finished match the code to the Category of your dummmy feature class layer to your symbol set you have createdd with Symbol Manager.  Import the symbology from the dummy layer into your end user layer.  Ship it to the end user. Periodically, the dummy feature class can be joined or related to the actual data source to check for new codes you need to account for that you failed to think of.  A Dissolve of the selection set of new coded values can be pasted in your dummy feature class.  Also add any more code you may for see with the secondary copy method described above.  Add the symbols listed in the new Dissolve and you other new codes into Symbol Manager and rerun the category symbol match.  Import the dummy layer symbology to your end user layer so that all used and potentially used values are available in it.  Ship the new end user layer to the end user. Nobody can imagine every possible code that can be generated in the world, including you, me or ESRI.  You know more about your domain than they ever will, but with Symbol Manager and the above dummy feature class you should be able to maintain something that works for you. ... View more

Look at the ArcGIS help for Symbol Manager.  For single field symbology codes you are describing what the Symbol Manager does.  I think it has existed since 9.0, but I know that it exiists in 9.3, Within Symbology Manager you can create your own symbol set that acts just like the ESRI symbol sets for Transportion, Mining, Hydrology, etc.  The symbols are given names that should match the code values you currently use or can possibly foresee using.  The same symbol can be used under many different code names for cases where there is more than one way to code the same symbol (a form of grouping outside a layer or a way of handling misspellings in the data sources before tehy are corrected).  You can define symbols and codes that have never been used by you or anyone else before and they will be permanently available for whenever the code might actually get used. The symbols remain independent of any field name used in a layer that actually stores the matching symbol code values.  As long as the field chosen in a layer as a Category field stores a value that matches a Symbol name you have defined, the symbols from your symbol set will be quickly matched to the field values.   There is a Category option to load the symbols from a chosen symbology set to a layer.  The load respects query definitions on the layer and only populates relavant entries to the layer (which keeps your map legends managable without the clutter of a huge set of unused values).  When a new code appears make sure you have a matching name in your symbol set and rerun the layer Category option.  Within about 2 seconds, the stored symbol will be added to the layer.  This is better than making a huge symbol set on a layer and trying to manage all possible code through it. The only limitation is that multi-field codes are not supported.  If you have them you will have to add a field to store the concatenated values which you then would match in your symbol set.  If you cannot alter the original data source for the layer to implement the concatenated field, you will need to use a joined table storing the concatenated values.  This definitely introduces some maintenance problems.  You will not be able to maintain a live symbol connection for the data editor on new rows and chages to the multi-field values will not be immediately reflected in your layer.  The editor would need to be trained to maintain the join table so they can operate with the symbols on the layer more or less as they edit, and should be provided with a modelbuilder model to assist them with updating the join table.  The model builder tool could also create the joinable table to SDE through Windows Scheduler and synchorized for non-work hours to be served concurrenly with your end user released data.  I have not looked at exporting the symbol set to another user or outside company, but I believe you can to try to get some of the work done on the client side.  However, trying to support outside users who are not trained to do even the simplest operations with a layer will never be an easy task. I hope this helps. ... View more

Look at the ArcGIS help for Symbol Manager.  For single field symbology codes you are describing what the Symbol Manager does.  I think it has existed since 9.0, but I know that it exiists in 9.3, Within Symbology Manager you can create your own symbol set that acts just like the ESRI symbol sets for Transportion, Mining, Hydrology, etc.  The symbols are given names that should match the code values you currently use or can possibly foresee using.  The same symbol can be used under many different code names for cases where there is more than one way to code the same symbol (a form of grouping outside a layer or a way of handling misspellings in the data sources before tehy are corrected).  You can define symbols and codes that have never been used by you or anyone else before and they will be permanently available for whenever the code might actually get used. The symbols remain independent of any field name used in a layer that actually stores the matching symbol code values.  As long as the field chosen in a layer as a Category field stores a value that matches a Symbol name you have defined, the symbols from your symbol set will be quickly matched to the field values.   There is a Category option to load the symbols from a chosen symbology set to a layer.  The load respects query definitions on the layer and only populates relavant entries to the layer (which keeps your map legends managable without the clutter of a huge set of unused values).  When a new code appears make sure you have a matching name in your symbol set and rerun the layer Category option.  Within about 2 seconds, the stored symbol will be added to the layer.  This is better than making a huge symbol set on a layer and trying to manage all possible code through it. The only limitation is that multi-field codes are not supported.  If you have them you will have to add a field to store the concatenated values which you then would match in your symbol set.  If you cannot alter the original data source for the layer to implement the concatenated field, you will need to use a joined table storing the concatenated values.  This definitely introduces some maintenance problems.  You will not be able to maintain a live symbol connection for the data editor on new rows and chages to the multi-field values will not be immediately reflected in your layer.  The editor would need to be trained to maintain the join table so they can operate with the symbols on the layer more or less as they edit, and should be provided with a modelbuilder model to assist them with updating the join table.  The model builder tool could also create the joinable table to SDE through Windows Scheduler and synchorized for non-work hours to be served concurrenly with your end user released data.  I have not looked at exporting the symbol set to another user or outside company, but I believe you can to try to get some of the work done on the client side.  However, trying to support outside users who are not trained to do even the simplest operations with a layer will never be an easy task. I hope this helps. ... View more

For features you also have the Transfer Attributes pair of tools that configures the transfer and that performs the transfer, but it is not available for Standalone Tables.  I use those tools a lot.  An adaptation of that tool that would encompass Standalone tables would be extremely useful, because a user could then predefine just those fields they want to duplicate from a source to the ones they want in a table and leave all other fields alone in a the record.  The configuration tool also works between sources and destinations where the field types are the same, but the field names are different.  The click-click work should be adapted to occur not only between features on a map, but between Tableviews on the little grey squares that are to the left of each record or any combination of the two.  So record to record transfers within a single Tableview or between two Tableviews could be an additional method of transfer that would support both features and Standalone table records.  That would be a life saver and my ideal tool fo creating and maintaining one-to-many and many-to-many relationships in ESRI. As a final comment, I also want to point out the amount of effort and risk that is involved in editing tables where I am forced to manually copy everything but a few values from another row in a Standalone Table, especially when the table has many fields.  Something that would be done in under 15 seconds with a simple copy/paste and edit of a few columns can take more than 5 minutes for rows with 50 columns.  All but 15 seconds of that work is wasted on manual duplications of values from another row. Performing cell-by-cell copy and paste operations from another record to the new record is exhausting and subjects the original record to corruption with an accidental paste on the wrong row.  Retyping the values in the new row subjects the new record to data entry error.  If I have many rows in a table that need to duplicate an original row I am tempted to use the field calculator to do the duplication.  But often to see the original values together with the blank rows, they both have to be selected and the field calculator can corrupt the original data and the new records simultaneously if the wrong value is in the calculator.  There is no technique to do manual data duplication of many columns between an original row and a new row that does not involve excessive work or some risk of data corruption to the new row, the original, or both.  If ESRI cares as much about protecting data from corruption as they say they do, they will implement these ideas for Standalone tables.. ... View more

I totally agree.  Also, what if I want to paste table content directly to Excel for a report rather than always having to export to dBase.  Excel is much easier to format the way I want than the Crystal Reports and ESRI reporting tools that ship with ArcGIS.  I even have the full Crystal report tool available, but I don't find it very intuitive and I cannot readily export the report to others who want both the data and the ability to alter the report format for their needs. Everyone can read Excel files and a huge number of people know how to format them.  For Features Classes I can copy records from the Tableview and paste the records directly into an Excel Spreadsheet, but I cannot for Standalone Tables.    Excel only wants the tabuar data and it is a pain to do exports to dBase all the time for Standalone tables when a simple paste would do.  The raw data from ArcGIS gets pasted under an Excel tab that I never alter or format (except perhaps to do summaries at the end with the summary tool).  I create other tabs for preformatted report pages that either use formulas to point to the raw data or else I do additional Copy operations from the cells I want and use Paste Special for Values into the report slots. With these techniques I can create very elaborate detail and summary reports that I can share with anyone (and almost anyone I share them with can alter the format and report styles for their own purposes depending on their management reporting needs).  The Excel reports are easy to paste on to a map and reformatting the report with cell specific fonts and other customizations to fit the space I have available on the map is much easier in Excel.  The above ideas would make this even easier as well as improve the proecss of maintaining the data accuracy and integrity of Standalone Tables in ArcMap. ... View more

I will have to eat my words about hyperlinks at least as of Version 9.3.  There is a check box option I found after writing this idea/complaint called "When the Hyperlinks or HTML Popup tool is selected, highlight features containing clickable content:" that does what I described for the Identify tool when it is checked.  The check box setting is under the "Tools | Options" menu under the General Tab in the Tools section of the page.  I do not think it is a default setting, but perhaps it should be. So my request is implemented for hyperlinks using the Identify tool at 9.3.  My workarounds may only apply to users of versions prior to Version 9.3.  So ESRI has given one-to-many and many-to-many relates some real funcionality, at least by 9.3. However, as far as I know, my work arounds still apply to Labelling, Symbology and many other aspects of ArcMap when a user wants to use values that are stored in a table with a one-to-many or many-to-many relationship relative to a feature.  This may never completely change, but there is still a lot that potentailly can be done to simplify the process within ArcGIS.  At the very least, ESRI should document an explanation of best practices, including the required licence level and tools, that are involved in the process of transformating one-to-many and many-to-many relationships into the one-to-one and many-to-one relationships, since the latter relationships are still required for most Desktop functions like Labelling and Symbology. Rich ... View more

My bad.  I should have posted this to Service Ideas.  I am new to the site, but I see the Desktop site is fast becoming cluttered as a dumping ground for everything, because it gets most of the attention.  Many users (like myself ) are having a difficult time reorienting to the new web designs and figuring out where our ideas really fit.  Too bad I have no way to withdrawn or recategorize an idea after I have posted it to clean up some of the mess in the Desktop page. ... View more

For almost all of my text fields I would like to use a space (" ") character as a default value, but it cannot be done.  Also there is no way to add a field to existing data and make it Required without problems being generated from the Null values that initialize the field.  So please combine this suggestion with the ability to add retroactively Required fields that are prepopulated with a default value, and include the ability to specify a space (" ") character as a default value. Rich ... View more

Chris: I have implemented the use of the ValidateFieldName for making sure the User Specified field will work with the Output table.  See code below:     #Process: Add the specified ORIG_OID field name     tempOidFieldName = originalOidFieldName     if originalOidFieldName not in ["","#"," "]:         originalOidFieldName = gp.ValidateFieldName(originalOidFieldName, os.path.dirname(outputLayer))         if outShpDbfFlag == True:             gp.AddField_management(outputLayer, originalOidFieldName[0:10], "LONG")         else:             gp.AddField_management(outputLayer, originalOidFieldName, "LONG") #...... In Warnings section.     if not tempOidFieldName == originalOidFieldName:         message = "WARNING: The Original OID field was changed from " + tempOidFieldName + " to " + originalOidFieldName + "!"; showPyWarning() I would like to modify the inputLayerFieldList to be a 2 dimendional array that holds the original field name and the output field name pair.  The output field name would be processed through the ValidateFieldName tool before inclusion in the array.  The array associating the original field name with the validated output field name would be better in my mind than simply trying a truncation of each original field name, when a .dbf or .shp file is specified for the output.  The array could also be processed outside of the loop against the actual output feature class generated to verify that two validated field names are not identical and make them unique in the same way that the CreateFeatureClass_management tool did.  Since the field list of the actual output field class should be in the same basic relative order as the array it should be relatively easy to get the actual field name created for the output into the array. The loop would have to be altered to get the upper bound of the field name array and use a for loop accessing the array with index values to get both input and output field name associations in a single pass within in the loop.  Each new record read within the loop would reset the field name index to 0.  I believe this would improve the ability of the code to take an input that is not a .dbf or .shp file and directly output it to a .dbf and .shp file output without loss of data or placing data in the wrong field in the output due to tracated field name duplications.  (I would like this tool to be worthy of consideration for inclusion in the ESRI releases of their software and the current code is too fragile on this type of transformation to qualify for that).  The loop should also no longer need to test if the output is a .dbf or .shp file and alter the field names within the loop, since the input/output field name pairings and alterations would already have occured outside the loop. How does Python handle multi-dimensional arrays and index access of arrays?  I know the syntax in VBA or VB Script to do what I want, but not in Python. One other question.  I used your tool in a ModelBuilder model.  When I attached other tools to the output, the tools did not know the schema of the output to choose fields in tools like the Calculate Field tool until I ran the script one time.  Do you know of a way to notify tools connected to the script output what the output schema will be before the tool is run once?  Thanks for your help. Rich ... View more

Chris: Your right, I like it very much. :cool:  With the geometry capabilities from the shape this starts looking like a real search cursor alternative, especially for when embedded cursors would normally be used. I don't have any background in using code like this, so I will have to play with it to start really understanding the possibilities (but hopefully I can approach it as being similar to a cursor on steriods). How well do you think it would do with 120,000 features (my main dataset)?  If not that well I could do a query selection first and just use the records I needed. I am very glad I started this dialog, since we seem to be aiming at many of the same things. Rich ... View more

Jinx posting. Look at my post right above yours concerning dictionaries. This is all great stuff - I'm a hack self-taught programmer, so it's great to get someone else's suggestions, tips, tricks, etc. Double jinx posting.  My background is the same.  I am not part of IT.  I'm just a guy who wants to get the job done and transform the way my Department sees and does things through GIS. ... View more