Customization

Modifying Toolbars for Increased Efficiency

Problem: Default toolbox settings in ArcMap 10.2 provide users with quick access to a select number of tools by docking some of the highly used tools at the top of the user interface.  Despite the high use of these tools on a macro level, GIS technicians at varying levels of complexity utilize different tools in their typical analyses.  In order to assist with efficient practices, the need to create custom toolbars is essential to help with the both ease of use as well as increased efficiency.

Analysis: In the process outlined below, I will review the processes required to create toolbars and a new context menu.  The first toolbar will be called ‘Fast Edits’, and will contain the following tools: Aspect, Point Density, Elevation, Slope, Steepest Path, and Run Easy Calculate.  This new toolbar will also include a drop-down menu called ‘Geocoding’, with the following tools: Geocode Addresses, and Address Inspector.  The second toolbar will be called ‘High Use Tools’, with a drop-down menu with the following tools: Average Nearest Neighbor, Calculate Areas, Calculate Distance Bands from Neighbors, and Central Feature.  Finally, the tool ‘Feature Class to Geodatabase’ will be added as a new context menu item.

Using ArcMap 10.2, modifications need to be made to the toolbar in order to increase efficiency and performance.  This will be completed by changing default settings found in the ‘customize mode’ screen and saving updated toolbars for future use.

The first process is used to create a new toolbar, and adding tools and a drop-down selection to it.  This is achieved by opening the ‘customize mode’ function and selecting the‘new’option.  Once the new toolbar has been named, additional tools were added to it.  Tools are added by opening the ‘commands’ tab.  In the ‘commands’ tab, tools are selected based on the demand for the tools.  Tools are dragged into the new toolbar.  A drop-down menu is also applied to the toolbar by dragging the ‘new menu’ option from the ‘commands’ screen to the new toolbar.  Once the drop-down menu is in the toolbar, additional tools can be dragged and dropped into the menu.  This process is repeated for additional toolbars.

The second process is designed to customize a context menu within layers.  This is achieved by selecting the ‘context menus’ option in the ‘customize toolbars’ function.  Once this has been selected, tools can be dragged from the ‘toolbox commands’ section to the new menu.  The tool needs to be dragged and dropped into ‘feature layer context menu’ option in the ‘context menu’ toolbar.  This will add a new tool to the layer, so when you right-click a layer, it will have additional options based on how we design it.

The third process was to determine the X and Y centers.  This was achieved by using the Easy Calculate tool.  Two new fields were created in the Police Districts Layer, one for each calculation, and then the Easy Calculate tool was run for each.

Results:
Image of map with custom toolbars and X&Y centers identified

Application and Reflection:
This will be useful in my future career as the tools that I will be using may differ from the default toolbar settings.  As an example, if I apply my GIS skills to a National Park Setting, I may want frequently use tools such as ‘elevation’, ‘steepest path tool’, or ‘slope’ in order to assist with different management plans, such as creating new hiking trails.  Knowing how to customize the toolbars and context menus will increase my work efficiency.