Latest Contributions by AndrewQuee

One thing I have noticed immediately perceptible (all releases to date) is that when I browse the local filesystem in ArcMap, it is virtually instant (unless you are opening a GDB with hundreds of objects in it).  On Pro depending on what the gremlins are doing behind the scenes it can take several seconds to open a folder with say a dozen files in it. I just tested a folder on my SSD (Pro 2.4.2) and it took a second of spinning to open the folder of... two text files.  On ArcMap (10.6.1) it is instantaneous, just like File Explorer. What the? It only happens once per session per path, but if you close Pro and start it, it occurs again.  Looks like Pro is indexing everything in the path (perhaps children), choosing icons, reading/caching metadata and previews, etc in the background.  Kind of like browser precaching/'speedup' addins. It's just a theory but explains the orders of magnitude performance loss to ArcMap though. ... View more

I'm seeing some useful discussion here.  To objectively (instead of subjectively, remember why progress bars were invented) measure performance for drawing using these tools PerfQAnalyzer: New 10.7/10.7.x Version (Build 173) Available for Download  PerfTools (Build 100) for ArcGIS Pro 2.x is now available for download  Yes I know this does not address other concerns raised about issues with speed of interface and starting tools, but this is at least a place to start with quantifiable and measurable facts.  You're not going to get anywhere with Esri devs with "I reckon..." ... View more

I have a .diagram model that I'd like to bring into more modern flowchart/diagram software.  I'm running 10.2 Diagrammer on an 8yo machine which is literally about to be put into the rubbish skip. Export options are some raster formats, wmf and possibly XML. I wasn't able to find any discussion about this online - does anyone know how to reuse this format under other software or current ArcGIS/Pro? ... View more

This is good but seems like an awful lot of double, triple, quadruple+ handling as groups/custodians write down details to post elsewhere which are then copied back to providers, then eventually corrected. Has there been any thought given to an OpenStreetMap-like system where the geometry and attributes are submitted directly, or even *shock, horror* validating basemap features against OSM itself?  Yes I realise that an open crowdsourced system is not the same as authoritative data, but could be used to test veracity/currency to give a confidence rating. ... View more

I assisted a client with this today.  It's strange that ArcMap can drag layers between it's documents, Pro can drag layer between it's documents, and Pro can import an MXD; you can even drag an ArcGIS .lyr file into Pro.  (tested ok 2.4.1) Yet you can't drag a layer from ArcMap to Pro.  Pro knows what it is and how to use it, it just won't. I get that importing an MXD and converting it to a Pro project is the intended direction, but this doesn't always work for all workflows. e..g. My organisation is just starting with Pro and has a multitude of ArcGIS versions in use in many areas, their workflows use MXDs not APRXs. Oftentimes I do not need all their layers and their documents are already incredibly complicated (200+layers) so I don't want to have to wait on converting a bunch of guff I don't need Archival, legacy project and some client's client documents are all going to be in MXD format. What happens when the MXD is usable but damaged/noncompliant and cannot be imported? (as with Thomas' comment) In order to facilitate transition to Pro (and while that transition is occurring) this feature would be very useful and almost essential when troubleshooting ArcMap documents or building new Pro projects from (possibly multiple) ArcMap documents. ... View more

Seems worthwhile, cut polygon is an excellent tool in ArcMap I just think for simplicity perhaps it would be easier to not introduce more tools and have the split function have 'duplicate' as the default behaviour or a configurable application setting. Real-life example:  You have a chocolate cake with ganache and rainbow freckles on top (the domain attribute).  You cut (split) it into two portions.  Do you have two parts of chocolate cake with freckles on icing (what you would expect) or do you have a plain chocolate cake with nothing on it (Esri)? Don't take our toppings, Esri! Edit: Same issue covered here https://community.esri.com/message/837051-re-splitting-line-wipes-out-domain-attributes?commentID=837051#comment-837023  ... View more

It depends.  Ram is (relatively) cheap, your time is presumably not.  While it may not make a difference right now, as soon as you run out of memory and start hitting pagefile (caching applications to hard drive) and getting the dreaded disk chatter and slowdown from Days Of Yore.  (Good times running processes overnight on tiny Pentium Celerons) It also depends on what you're doing.  We process in FME, Modeller and Bentley with big data.  For production efficiency some users run two or even three(!) ArcMaps side by side, or ArcMap plus Pro.  That's before you even open other business apps.   Don't get me started on Adobe and Apple software which I believe are borderline malware and banned from my PC. Having more ram is like having a bigger battery.  You won't need it until you do, but when you do, you will need it. ... View more

For a bit of manual 'hacking' it is possible to manually reorder a domain, but it's a real PITA.  Hence why this idea is important. Find the domain Go through all subtypes in numerical (or preferred) order and rename with '.' at the beginning or ending Press OK, close window Open subtypes on domain again to see the new order Now, start at the beginning and remove the '.' from the item you want to the the very first one (and rename it if needed) Apply Do 2nd entry Apply Do 3rd entry Apply etc etc ad nauseum for the rest of the domain Each time you rename a subtype, it will be tossed to the end of the table, and this is how it will be presented to LE users. If you want to rename an entry (e.g. 'South Esk Water' to 'Deprecated') and keep its order, you must use the above procedure to rename that subtype and all subsequent subtypes. Do not ask why, just thank Esri for this 'feature'! ... View more

(Coded value) Domain sorting is supported out of the (tool) box with the Domain Toolset http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/latest/tools/data-management-toolbox/sort-coded-value-domain.htm https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/tool-reference/data-management/sort-coded-value-domain.htm This doesn't help Peter Russell or anyone else who wants to manually order a domain.  ... View more

I can't speak to Macs, but on PC desktop 16GB has been our minimum configuration for years.  I opened a random project and am now using 6GB ram already before even doing anything.  Only part of this is Pro, but everything eats resources nowadays, just Windows and business apps eats 4GB all by themselves.  We do have an Apple running Desktop in a VM and it suffers due to running two OS' at once. Our new workstations run 64GB ram, and this seems suitable for intensive work. ... View more

Replying to myself, how narcissistic! Ego aside, here's an update for those interested in the hardware side of Pro requirements.  We're about to replace our Dell Precision quad-3.4GHz 16GB with Lenovo ThinkCentre hex-2.4GHz 16GB (don't ask why we are 'sidegrading', public service) Of particular interest is the comparison between the 2014-era consumer Liteon 256GB SSD on SATA and the 2019 prosumer Samsung 500GB SSD on NVMe. I won't go into the other benchmarks but they are roughly comparable as shown.  As you can see above even though Passmark is just a synthetic benchmark, the performance difference between the two SSD models is dramatic, and remains the same regardless of the other hardware configurations (all Lenovos had the same class drive) as shown below. This results in a smoother and more responsive experience in Pro, making up for some of the possible disadvantages of the system.  Based on this and initial testing I would highly recommend adopting M.2 NVMe in your next scheduled upgrade.  I still haven't rebuilt my gaming rig (shame, all I can run is Warframe.  Badly) but I'll update you with the results, although that example won't be so clear cut as there's more variables beyond the primary drive being changed in support of *ahem* real-time dynamic rendered entertainment suites. Finally, if you don't have the opportunity to move to NVMe and must stay with SATA (for example, you do not have M.2 support on your computer) be aware that even all 'standard' SSDs are not the same.  Samsung (and others) are built with different tech it seems the big difference is that QLC ram in the Samsung QVO is cheaper but less durable than TLC ram in the Samsung EVO, max speed also drops. Ref. "MLC vs TLC vs QLC: Why QLC Matters" tldr: Replace your old SSDs with TLC-SSDs for maximum performance and durability.  For Samsung this is the EVO gamerspec model, not QVO desktop model. This  article was not sponsored or endorsed by any of the manufacturers mentioned and remains my subjective and probably worthless opinion only. Edit: Added world benchmark link for the Liteon in case you thought I'd accidentally benched my optical drive (yes the Dell Precision has one).  Who knew Liteon SSDs were even a thing?  Surprise!  ... View more

(like "sharing" instead of "printing"!). That one made me see red for a while.  Yes I get the idea but 'print' has been the correct terminology since computers could put ink to paper, so only the last hundred years or so.  ...and for hundreds of years before that in dead-tree format. What genius thought that discarding hundreds of years of accepted tradition and wording was necessary to 'sex up' the interface?  "We're not printing anymore that's sooo last-millenium, we're sharing information now, like on social media!" No doubt they come from the same design school that has our current office remodel banning coat stands and umbrellas from the office "because they look messy."  Meanwhile it can rain here twice a week and has done so for hundreds of thousands of years and no doubt will continue to do so regardless of the aesthetics of the office. Seems to be style over substance to me. ... View more

That's nice, great work. I'm not really that cheesed off, just venting at the design choices.  In truth we had a dev meeting recently where we looked again at migration from Desktop to Pro.  There are some good reasons to do so, especially if you're an Enterprise shop (which we are), and if you're doing 3D well Pro just blows ArcScene out of the water. We're thinking of pushing forwards our 2025 acceptance milstone.  Maybe 2023. ... View more

You can also get this direct from github: sample-gp-tools/FeaturesToGPX at master · arcpy/sample-gp-tools · GitHub  I thought Pro might do it but it seems that Pro natively supports reading but not writing GPX. ... View more

Just adding some thoughts from a recent training session with more depth. Some of the ribbon designs choice are... seriously impractical.  Having half a dozen 'save' buttons littered throughout the ribbon which then block further edit or save operations is just silly.  I collected them all and put them on the quick access.  Whichever one isn't shaded out is the one that needs pressing, just save it and let me get on with my work, darn it!  A better design would be either to have one save button function that saves all changes, or when you leave a section that has unsaved changes to popup a "Do you want to save your changes?" dialog instead of letting users wander off and have to somehow find their way back to the section that needed saving.  Whichever one that was... Same for File - Print, oh no, I mean Share - Print.  I realise again that it's an intentional design, but changing a globally-understood workflow that has been in place for longer than the designers have (probably) been alive seems a bit short-sighted.  Much like Chromium removing backspace navigation because some inept users were wiping out their forms.  "If it ain't broke..."   To the quick access with you too, print button.  To rub salt into the wound, 'print' isn't even a searchable term in the command filter to even find the print button.  I know that the digital age has rendered etching images on flattened tree carcasses almost archaic, but it does needs to be done every now and again. The only risk here with adding more and more to the quick access is that I will eventually end up with every tool I use in the in the quick access bar, in which case I guess I could just turn off the ribbon altogether and have something that looks a bit like ArcMap, but more disorganised. ... View more