Link layers from two Data Frames?

[KevinHenry1]

I am creating a county-scale map with an inset map data frame of communities in the county, created with data driven pages so it can be scrolled through.

I am also visualizing a variety of data, which the end user will have to toggle on and off to fully explore the map. Unfortunately, when the main county-scale map is interacted with, the layer visibility changes are not made on the community-scale inset map.

Does ArcMap have any functionality to achieve the desired: a link between the two dataframes which toggles the visibility of a layer as it's copy is toggled in another data frame.

I am not afraid to get my Python hands dirty, so if there is a hack I can achieve that can be then distributed to clients and function properly, I'm all ears.

Thank you for your help,

Kevin Henry

[OwenEarley]

You could use a combination of the following to build something in python:

• arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames
• arcpy.mapping.ListLayers

You would need to be able to identify your layers in each data frame (by name, description, etc). Once you have a reference to your layer you can turn it on/off using the visible property.

The problem is that you would need something to trigger the update event when a layer is checked. You can access this event using ArcObjects ILayerEvents (.Net or Java) but I am not aware of a way to do it using python.