ArcGIS Editor Toolbar

Getting the Most Out of the ArcGIS Editor Toolbar: A Human’s Guide

So, you’re diving into the world of geospatial data with ArcGIS? Awesome! One of the first things you’ll want to get comfortable with is the ArcGIS Editor Toolbar. Think of it as your digital Swiss Army knife for creating, tweaking, and generally keeping your geospatial data in tip-top shape. Whether you’re rocking ArcGIS Pro or the ArcGIS Web Editor, mastering this toolbar is key to smooth and accurate editing.

At its heart, the Editor Toolbar is all about giving you the power to update the shapes and information attached to your map features. It’s got tools that let you:

• Bring new features to life: Add fresh elements to your map and fill in all the juicy details about them. Back in ArcGIS 10, this was all about using editing templates – a bit clunky, but it got the job done.
• Give existing features a makeover: Change the shape of a river, move a building, or split a road – you name it. Tools like “move,” “reshape,” and “split” are your best friends here.
• Update the details: Correct a street name, add a population number, or change a land use type. It’s all about keeping your data current and accurate.

Let’s zoom in on some of these tools, shall we?

• Move: Exactly what it sounds like – pick up a feature and plop it down somewhere else. The cool thing is, it keeps the feature’s shape intact.
• Reshape: This is where you get to be an artist. Add to or subtract from a feature’s existing shape. I’ve used this countless times to clean up messy polygon boundaries.
• Edit Vertices: Get down to the nitty-gritty and tweak the individual points that make up a line or polygon. Trust me, this is essential for those really precise edits.
• Split: Need to divide a parcel or split a road? This tool is your go-to. You can split things along a line or even use another polygon as a cookie cutter.
• Merge: Ever need to combine two adjacent parcels into one? Merge makes it a snap.
• Copy/Paste: A classic! Duplicate features within the same layer, or even move them to a different layer that you can edit. “Paste Special” is a neat trick for moving stuff between different layer types.
• Delete: When all else fails, or you just need to get rid of something, Delete is your friend. Just be careful – there’s no undo button in real life!

Now, a quick word on how editing works. Back in the ArcMap days, you had to manually start and stop editing sessions. It was a bit of a pain, honestly. ArcGIS Pro is much smarter – it keeps an edit session running in the background, so you can just dive in and start making changes. Just remember to save your edits to commit them to the database! Think of it like writing a document – you need to save it, or all your hard work disappears.

Speaking of the old days, ArcGIS 10 had this two-step dance of selecting editable elements and fiddling with templates. It worked, but it wasn’t exactly intuitive.

Want to make the toolbar your own? You can! Tweak its size, dock it on the left, bottom, or right – whatever floats your boat. You can even make the icons bigger if you’re working on a high-resolution screen. ArcGIS Pro even lets you magnify the toolbar when you hover over it – a nice touch, if you ask me.

And let’s not forget about snapping! This is crucial for accurate editing. Snapping helps your cursor “stick” to vertices and edges, so you don’t end up with gaps or overlaps. Trust me, your future self will thank you for using snapping.

One last thing: if you’re using ArcGIS Online, check out the ArcGIS Web Editor. The June 2024 update made it even easier to use, with a slick interface and tools for creating and modifying features. It even enforces data rules as you’re capturing data, which is a huge time-saver.

In short, the ArcGIS Editor Toolbar is a powerful tool that every ArcGIS user should know inside and out. By understanding its tools and how to customize it, you can streamline your editing workflow, ensure data accuracy, and create truly awesome maps. And with the constant improvements to the ArcGIS platform, like the ArcGIS Web Editor, it just keeps getting better!