ArcGIS Pro

2019 September -- I am now using ArcGIS Pro (aka 'AGP') like it or not. Well, it's different that's for sure.

• I still hate ribbon interfaces.
• Arcade -- A new scripting language; seriously? SAFE TO IGNORE. Use Python.
• Migrating from ArcMap -- I can import MXD files. This seems to be working at 2.2.

I started using AGP 2.4 to publish services to Portal and it's working fine. There are not as many switches and buttons and I will probably create scripts to do this task anyway.

The labels generated in Pro and shipped to tiles are better, at least for a non-cached service. I did taxlots and was able to place near the top of the parcel instead at the centroid. With a feature service it still shows up at the centroid (as I expected).

The Maplex dilemma still exists. Use it and learn the features and then get slammed to the mat when you discover it will not work in any online services, including building tiles on the desktop and sending them up to a server. All this makes me want to cry.

Book reviews

Here is what Safari offers me today.

• Mapping with ArcGIS Pro - Ryan Malhoski. Okay, pretty good but won't tell me about symbolizing points. Lots of basic carto tips.
• ArcGIS Pro 2.x Cookbook - Tripp Corbin. Good for the first two hours. I am already beyond that. :-)

Have not looked at these yet but the titles don't look promising

• ArcPy and ArcGIS - Silas Toms et al.
• Introducing ArcGIS API 4 for JavaScript: Turn Awesome Maps into Awesome Apps - Rene Rubalcava - not sure if it's worth looking

Styles and layers

ArcMap MXD to QGIS is awkward because ArcMap won't export symbolizations and the settings would not map well to QGIS anyway. There is a project on github now to deal with this called SLYR.

Trying slyr

How do I create an ESRI .style file, anyway? In ArcMap you do a "save" from the style properties dialog. The .style files are Access databases, complicated and containing BLOBs.

In AGP, you can create .stylx files, which I guessed would be XML format. NOPE, they are SQLite databases. Peek inside one using the .dump command in sqlite3.

AGP layer files (.lyrx) actually are JSON code.

Clone the project

repos
git clone [email protected]:nyalldawson/slyr.git

In a cmd window, create an environment and add the required packages

conda create -n slyr
activate slyr
conda install pyodbc
cd slyr
python bintools/extract_bin.py samplefile.style

My laptop overheats

Q. My poor little Dell laptop now has to run something called ArcGISIndexingServer and the fan is cranking full speed and steam is coming out of the vents. And I am not even running ArcGIS Pro! How do I make it go away?

A. It started when you were running AGP. Remove indexing in the AGP project, delete the index, exit AGP, and then wait a few minutes. FAQ: Why does the ArcGISIndexingServer.exe use a high amount of computer memory? does not actually answer the question, but does tell you how to stop indexing.

I am sure indexing does something useful but I won't know until I get a new computer next year. 8 GB of RAM, SSD, and 8 processor cores are not enough!

I upgraded to 16GB and the computer overall is now running better when I start AGP. Consider 16GB the minimum. Another story, Arcmap has crashed on me probably 6-8 times today. But that's just life with ArcMap. Maybe it has too much memory. :-)