Latest Contributions by RichardFairhurst

What I was actually referring to is called Style Manager, not Symbol manager and it deals with a lot more than Symboloogy.  However, I realize now that you are using the Many-Field Category symbology.  I understand the time savings potential with your suggestion, but you still have a manual way to add unused values using the "Add Values...".  button to open the "Add Values" dialog. Under the "New Value" text box at the bottom of the dialog you can type (or paste and modify) new values that are not currently in your data.  Values you want to add need to be formatted the same existing values.  By that I mean that they must follow the field order and values from the second and third field need to be separated from the preceeding fields values by a comma followed by a space.  When you press the "Add to List button, the value you entered will be added to the "Select the value(s) to add:" list box.  When you have entered all of the values you need, you can select them all and add them to the layer symbology.  The new symbols labels will match what you typed.  If you using a Domain value, you will have to retype the labels to translate to the Domain values.  Once this is done do not use the "Add All Values button again.  Instead use the Add Vallues... button get the Complete list and add all of the values that appear that you failed to think of. But be warned, these kinds of layers eventually will cause a huge performance hit as your data grows.  I have large data sources (up to 3/4 million records) and find the performance hit is just too great using multi-field values and adding every symbol, including unused symbols, into a single layer.  The performance sucks because I discovered that the source table records are being repeatedly read from top to bottom for each symbol in the list, even if they are only used once or are never used.  When I use a single layer like the one you want with 30 complex line symbols on data sources like this I have experienced normal redraw times of 5 minutes pre refresh.  Totally unlivable. To regain redraw speed I have had to create a group layer that containing as many layers of the same source to draw each symbol in its own layer.  Each individually symbolized layer has a definition query that limits the records for each layer to just those that apply to the symbol displayed.  (I also create a catch all layer just for finding new symbol values, but I never draw it).  Because each layer only reads records that actually use the single symbol for the layer, I have improved my redraw performance in such cases from 5 minutes per refresh to under 20 seconds.  Complex multi-part line symbols unavoidably cause a hit all by themselves, because each symbol part causes the table records to be reread from top to bottom, but by preliming the records to read just those that apply I minimize that hit as much as possible.  So I have abandoned all single layer symbologies like the kind you want whenever I have many symbols associated with over 10,000 records.  As a result, I just almost never use kitchen sink layers any more. ... View more

What I was actually referring to is called Style Manager, not Symbol manager and it deals with a lot more than Symboloogy.  However, I realize now that you are using the Many-Field Category symbology.  I understand the time savings potential with your suggestion, but you still have a manual way to add unused values using the "Add Values...".  button to open the "Add Values" dialog. Under the "New Value" text box at the bottom of the dialog you can type (or paste and modify) new values that are not currently in your data.  Values you want to add need to be formatted the same existing values.  By that I mean that they must follow the field order and values from the second and third field need to be separated from the preceeding fields values by a comma followed by a space.  When you press the "Add to List button, the value you entered will be added to the "Select the value(s) to add:" list box.  When you have entered all of the values you need, you can select them all and add them to the layer symbology.  The new symbols labels will match what you typed.  If you using a Domain value, you will have to retype the labels to translate to the Domain values.  Once this is done do not use the "Add All Values button again.  Instead use the Add Vallues... button get the Complete list and add all of the values that appear that you failed to think of. But be warned, these kinds of layers eventually will cause a huge performance hit as your data grows.  I have large data sources (up to 3/4 million records) and find the performance hit is just too great using multi-field values and adding every symbol, including unused symbols, into a single layer.  The performance sucks because I discovered that the source table records are being repeatedly read from top to bottom for each symbol in the list, even if they are only used once or are never used.  When I use a single layer like the one you want with 30 complex line symbols on data sources like this I have experienced normal redraw times of 5 minutes pre refresh.  Totally unlivable. To regain redraw speed I have had to create a group layer that containing as many layers of the same source to draw each symbol in its own layer.  Each individually symbolized layer has a definition query that limits the records for each layer to just those that apply to the symbol displayed.  (I also create a catch all layer just for finding new symbol values, but I never draw it).  Because each layer only reads records that actually use the single symbol for the layer, I have improved my redraw performance in such cases from 5 minutes per refresh to under 20 seconds.  Complex multi-part line symbols unavoidably cause a hit all by themselves, because each symbol part causes the table records to be reread from top to bottom, but by preliming the records to read just those that apply I minimize that hit as much as possible.  So I have abandoned all single layer symbologies like the kind you want whenever I have many symbols associated with over 10,000 records.  As a result, I just almost never use kitchen sink layers any more. ... View more

Final suggestion.  Add a "Transfer Paste Selected" option for the Attribute Transfer tool in the Tableview context menu.  That would actually make the Tableview a superior means of transferring attribute data over features on a map where many records need the same attributes transferred to them in a single operaton.  This option would provide the best support for one-to-many and many-to-many relationships.  However, It would make no sense to provide a "Transfer Copy Selected" option, since that would make the paste operation ambiguous about what original record attributes should actually be pasted to the target. ... View more

Since the Transfer Attribute idea just came to me as I was writing about the effects of manually duplicating information between rows I did not think through the fact that the Tableview grey sqaure next to each record already uses virtually all of the left-click combinations for record selection operations.  However, if a context menu option to "Transfer Copy" and "Transfer Paste" could be added to the Tableview context menu that would acheive the effect I want. The appropriate context menu option above should only be enabled during an edit session if a transfer had been configured for a given Tableview with the Configure Transfer button and if the Transfer Attribute tool is active.  Two right-clicks and two left-clicks to complete a transfer within or between Tableviews of Standalone Tables and/or Feature Layers is still better than what exists today for Standalone Tables, which is nothing.  Even though Feature Layers may not need these context options in their Tableviews to effectively use the Transfer Attributes tool, this additional transfer method should not hurt anything and would provide interface consistency that would permit users to choose whatever tranfer method they prefer in the case of Feature Layers I believe that the above proposed expansion of the Attribute Transfer tool together with the original idea proposed by RudinA would make Standalone Tables real "first class" objects in the editing environment. ... View more

Chris: On the Ideas page I see that as of Version 10 ESRI has added a Permanently Sort Features tool.  See the link below: http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Sort/001700000057000000/ ESRI's tool requires an ArcInfo licence to use it, which has caused a lot of requests to make it work with an ArcView licence.  Obvoiusly it is not a Python script.  It differs from your tool in that it takes a comma delimited list of fields rather than the prevalidated field names of your parameters (but their tool supports unlimited sort fields).  I don't know whether their tool preserves the OIDs or not, since that aspect is not mentioned (I have used your latest version with a unalterable table that only had OIDs as a unique join field and the new tool has solved the problems I have had trying to preserve the original OID valuse in an unsummarized copy of a Standalone Table).  The most interesting thing about ESRI's tool is that it does Spatial Sorting (UR, UL, LR, LL, and PEANO) when the Shape field is chosen as (one of the or the only?) sort field.  You may have already known about this tool, but I wanted to make sure. A few other notes.  GetValue and SetValue are the only methods that take a variable for a field to access field values in Python per the Geoprocessing Model diagram.  Not sure if my suspicions under the hood are correct, but it looks likely at this point based on how these functions are described.  The help for GetValue/SetValue says that cursors also can use a field name or a field index directly to get and set values where they are known, but the examples and Geoprocessing diagram only indicate the field name method in the form:  cursor.fieldname = value.  Nothing shown is similar to ArcObjects use of field index values. I sort of get the examples of Lists and Dictionaries you posted, but I have not figured out exactly how best to loop a paired list/dictionary (like embedded cursors) to do the validation checks I want.  Still working on it, but for now a two step process to a file geodatabase and then an export to .shp/.dbf is not that bad where I cannot risk data loss.  The transformation works just fine when I already know all field names will still be unique after the 10 character truncation, but I would like it to be a bit more bullet proof for users that may not consider the effects of the field name conversion. Lastly, have you noticed a significant amount of time gets spent creating the ouput feature layer table with the Create_Managment tool?  At least last night it was taking 3 minutes on that step, and there was not anything special I could see that accounted for it.  I don't recall that amount of lag the first times I used your tool.  Ever experienced that issue and have any ideas on what may cause it? ... View more

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