Polygon line thickness issue when handling symbology with Java Arcobjects

[PeterLen]

We are using ArcGIS 10.0 and I am building a Java custom tool (for a toolbox) using the java ArcObjects API.  In my tool, I am taking in the location of an MXD file and the location of a file GDB.  I am taking the features from the file GDB and creating a layer within the MXD.  No problem with any of that.  What I also am doing is updating the layer's symbology to give a specific fill color to the features (polygons) when added to the MXD map document.  No problem with that either.  The problem that I am running into deals with the polyon line thickness.  I give a black border line color but I would like the thickness of the line to be some value bigger than 1.  This is the code that I am using in relation to the feature layer's symbology:

SimpleRenderer sr = (SimpleRenderer) featurelayer.getRenderer();

ISymbol sym = sr.getSymbol();

SimpleFillSymbol sfs = (SimpleFillsymbol) sym;

sfs.setColor(rgb);

ILineSymbol ls = new SimpleLineSymbol();

ls.setWidth(5);

ls.setColor(blackColor);

sfs.setOutline(ls);

Here is the oddity.  When the MXD file is just an empty MXD, the features added to the map document have a blcak line with a width of 5, which is just what I wanted. If, however, the MXD is a template (which contains things like a North arrow, legend, scale, etc), the line thickness for the features stays at 1, although  the outline in the legend of the template is 5 and the outline in the ArcMap's TOC for that layer is also 5.  I am not sure why feature polygon outline is not changed.  Any clues as to why this is happening?  Is there some template property I need to set?

Thanks for any thoughts - Peter

[FrankHellwich1 · Accepted solution]

Hallo Peter,

I guess that there's a reference scale defined in the data frame of your template so that your line symbol is scaled. Open the properties-dialog of your data frame, set the reference scale to <none> (I hope the value is defined like that - I just have a german version) and check the appearance of your outline

Frank  

[PeterLen]

Frank - Thanks for the response.  Yes, if I set the reference scale to None then I do get the line thickness.  Excellent find.  The scale had been set to 1:500,000 on the template but don't know if that was done for a reason.  I will have to do some checking to see if changing the scale to None will have some adverse effect.  Thanks again - Peter