ArcGIS Explorer Blog : Options

Controlling navigation when you add content

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:33:00 GMT

By default ArcGIS Explorer will automatically navigate to the extent of the content you add to your map. Don't like this behavior? Here's how to change it.

First, click the ArcGIS Explorer button in the upper left, then click ArcGIS Explorer Options.

On the Common options look under Map Navigation. Check Automatically navigate when content is added to the map off.

Now when you add content to your map your location will not change. To zoom to your newly added content just double-click it in the Contents window.

Display overlay, legends, and streamlining the user experience

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:17:00 GMT

One of the properties of a map is a Display Overlay, a handy thing to use when you want to stamp your map with a company logo or some other message like we've done below. You can learn more about this and other options under the Setting map properties Help topic.

But in this particular case we used the display overlay for something a little different. We were working on a map for a specific audience, and because of our presentation goals we wanted to hide as much of the Explorer user interface as possible. The goal was to eliminate everything except for the globe showing our data and a legend, and the navigator.

Normally the legend is displayed by right-clicking on a layer in Contents and choosing Legend. But we wanted the legend always visible, and eliminated these clicks completely by capturing it and creating a PNG file to use as the display overlay. We kept a small transparent boundary around our legend PNG so it would be placed out of the corner and slightly onto our map.

To add our legend PNG to the display, we chose File > Map Properties, clicked Display Overlay, and set the options as shown below.

This is how our map looked so far:

But we wanted to streamline our map even further. We did so by hiding the console (by clicking View and unchecking it) and also toggling Auto Hide Menu Bar (checking it on), as shown here:

We also removed the coordinate display along the bottom of our map by going to Tools > Options, and unchecking Positional Text under Map Display:

And here's our final map, with our legend always visible and our minimal user interface.

Some Starting Options to Consider

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:56:00 GMT

One of the nice things about Explorer is that you can easily customize it to suit the way you work, or perhaps more accurately - the way you want to work. By choosing Tools, then Options, you'll find a number of settings that will allow you to customize the way Explorer works for you. Here's some of our favorites.

Which map do you want to open? By default, Explorer opens your most recently saved map. This is great if your workflow involves using the last map you saved, but it won't be ideal if you do a lot of authoring and want to start with the default map. In that case, you'll likely want to start with the Server default map, and if your Home Server is ESRI, then that will be the one you'll want to start with.

To open the default map instead of your last saved map, just go to Tools, then Options, and choose Startup to toggle Open ESRI's default map. If you are working from your own home server, then your home server's name will replace "ESRI."

Another option to consider is how you travel from one place to another, for example when you click on a result. The default action is to Fly To the next location, but you may prefer Move To. Move To is the instantaneous way to travel. Rather than liftoff and navigate, you'll immediately be at your next location. Especially if you want to navigate to the same set of places over and over, Move To is instantaneous.

Go to Tools > Options > Flight Characteristics to toggle this setting.

Tired of answering all those wizard questions when you open local data sources? Using Tools > Options > Open Content Settings you can tell Explorer to use your last preferences, bypassing all those questions.

These are just a few of the ways to change the way Explorer works for you. For more information, visit the Setting application options Help topic.