Toggle Draft Mode in ArcGIS Pro

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05-10-2017 10:10 AM
Status: Open
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MichaelSchoelen
Occasional Contributor III

ArcMap has two great features for pausing drawing ("Pause Drawing" in the map view and "Toggle Draft Mode" in the layout view). This capability is fantastic for when the user needs to perform a series of tasks (reordering layers, changing a host of symbology settings, removing and grouping layers, changing labels, etc), without redrawing the map/layout every time a property is changed.

The 2016 release of ArcGIS Pro 1.4 does not have this capability for map tabs or layout tabs. This disrupts the workflow, because the user has to wait for the map to render between steps.

This ideas has been marked by Kory Kramer‌ as a Duplicate of Pause Drawing in ArcGIS Pro‌.  Please visit that idea, up vote and add comments if you'd like to see Pause Drawing in Pro maps and/or Toggle Draft Mode in Pro layouts.  This was originally marked as a Duplicate but is now changed specifically to Toggle Draft Mode.

4 Comments
ErinnFought1

Has this been addressed in any updates since the original question in 2016?  the absence of draft mode is a major workflow disruption. 

AlfredBaldenweck

This still does not appear to be implemented. Please add this; it's a lifesaver when setting up a layout for complicated, resource intensive maps.

MarkJacobi1

I often need to align elements, tables, images, legends, text boxes, and work with large maps. Toggle draft mode used to allow efficient placements of these things. 

 

 

 

AlfredBaldenweck

I recently asked about it and both Pause Drawing and Item visibility were brought up as counterpoint.

Pause Drawing does not actually pause drawing. If you have drawing paused and turn a layer off, the layer will disappear from view.

Also, Pause Drawing doesn't do the thing that we want, which is to instantly turn everything into easily-rendered grey squares.

AlfredBaldenweck_0-1692311310674.png

AlfredBaldenweck_1-1692311346523.png

 

Why is it still thinking when the drawing is paused? Why are my layers frozen until it decides to stop drawing?

In short, Pause Drawing does not fill the very useful niche of Draft Mode, which is to give us an easily-drawn layout that we can rearrange quickly.

 

Another counterpoint was turning off item visibility and use the position tab on the Elements pane to move or resize things. Again, this is not a great substitute, because then I have to guess where things are supposed to go, turn the items on again, and wait for them to render, then repeat. For large or complicated maps, this takes forever. I have actually been approximating draft mode by adding in square graphics to mock up my layout, then adjusting my items to match. It'd be a lot easier if I could just use Draft mode.