Select By Attributes/Location — Add a "Clear Selection" button
ArcGIS Pro 2.9.5
I'm wondering if it would help to have a Clear Selection button in the Select By Attributes and Select By Location windows.
I'm aware there is a Clear button in the Map ribbon tab; that tab might not be open when using the Select tools. I'm also aware that there is a Clear button in the Attribute Table; the Attribute Table might no longer be open when using the Select tools. Regardless, I think it would be more intuitive to have a clear button in the Select windows, since that's where the selection is being performed.
Also, we have established that hitting Apply when there are no selection expressions selects all rows instead of clearing the selection. No SQL expressions in Select By Attributes — Don't select all rows when I hit apply. Since a "blank Apply" can't be used to clear the selection, a Clear button might be a good alternative.
Technically it's available in the selection type dropdown, but I agree that having a button might be nice, too.
Wait, no. It's not available for the Select By Location tool
But it is available in select by attribute
From the help:
Specifies how the selection will be applied to the input and how it will be combined with an existing selection. This tool does not include an option to clear an existing selection; use theSelect Layer By Attributetool with theselection_typeparameter set toCLEAR_SELECTIONto do that.
Weeeeird.
So, at a minimum, a "Clear Selection" option should be added to Select By Location to bring it in line with Select By Attribute.
It exists if there is a selection, by throwing the toggle it will effectively ignore any selection leaving the existing selection to be used by other processes.
I wouldn't change a thing