Clicking this button opens a message telling you the web address of this help document. Clicking here opens this help document in a browser (Windows only). You can also get context-sensitive help by Alt-clicking on just about any button, tool, checkbox, etc. on any of the dialogs that are part of this extension (this help document will be opened in a browser, showing the page corresponding to that button). You can change where the extension looks for the help (internet vs. hard drive).NOTE: THE ALT-CLICK HELP HAS BEEN DISABLED DUE TO CRASHES.
Additional Options button
The Additional Options button gives you some additional functions not available from the various dialogs, including:
Convert Polygons to Labelpoints:
This function takes the tabular (table) attributes of a polygon theme and creates a point shapefile that contains the same attributes as the polygons, with one point for each polygon. The point will be located inside the polygon whose attributes it holds. This may cause problems if you have a polygon theme in which the polygons overlap since a labelpoint could fall within two polygons. If you have some of the polygons selected, you will have the option of using only the selected ones to perform the function. This function is useful when you 'unbuild' a polygon theme into lines for editing purposes. You can maintain the polygons' attributes in a labelpoint theme so that when you rebuild the lines into polygons, you can easily replace the polygons' attributes from the labelpoints. When you use the 'Unbuild' function, you will have the option to run this function as part of the unbuilding process, but it is offered here in case you want to run it separately.
Transfer labelpoint attributes into polygons:
This function takes attributes that are stored in 'labelpoints' (points that are placed so that one falls inside the boundary of each polygon of a corresponding polygon layer) and transfers these attributes from the labelpoint theme to a polygon theme. The transfer is based on where the points fall within the polygons. Where there is a one-to-one correspondence, (one and only one point is within a polygon) the attributes will be transferred. If two or more points (or no points) are inside a polygon, no attributes will be transferred to that polygon. [This script currently treats multipoints as one shape.] A new polygon shapefile will be created with the attribute table structure of the point theme. The attributes of the original polygon theme will not be transferred to the new polygon theme. If you have some of the points selected, you will have the option of using only the selected points to perform the function. This function is useful when you 'unbuild' a polygon theme into lines for editing purposes. You can maintain the polygons' attributes in a labelpoint theme so that when you rebuild the lines into polygons, you can easily replace the polygons' attributes from the labelpoints. When you use the 'Build' function, you will have the option to run this function as part of the building process, but it is offered here in case you want to run it separately.
Put features from themes into editable theme:
This function gives you an easy way to transfer features from one theme to another. It copies all the selected features from all the active themes into the editable theme, assuming they are the same feature type. If no features are selected, none will be transferred. You can also choose to transfer attributes where possible (where there are identically named fields in the from-theme and the to-theme). Remember, there are often problems transferring attributes when field names exceed ten characters in length, since the .dbf format ArcView uses has a maximum field name length of ten. This is most often a problem with ARC/INFO coverages. The Parcel Editor's Grab Line from Background Theme tool performs a similar function.
Create line/poly from points in a point theme:
This function allows you to create a line or polygon by connecting a series of points from a point theme. The points can be connected in the order they appear in the theme's table or in the order of the integer numbers in a field (column) in the theme's table. If you have an editable line or polygon theme in the View, the line or polygon will be created as a feature. Otherwise, you can create it as a graphic. This can be useful in many situations; it was developed for connecting GPSed parcel boundary markers.
Calculate area of polygons:
This function calculates the area of each selected polygon in the active theme (or, if no features are selected, all features' areas will be calculated). The user can choose from a number of units (square feet, square miles, square kilometers, acres, etc.). The script will tell you the total area of all the polygons you calculated. The area value of each polygon can optionally be written into any numeric field in the theme's table, or into a new field you create. This value's accuracy can depend on what projection your data is stored in.
Calculate length of lines:
This function works like the Calculate area of polygons function, except it calculates length of lines (or length of polygon perimeters). This value's accuracy can depend on what projection your data is stored in.
Add points from X,Y coordinates:
This function allows you to create new point features (into a new point theme) or graphic points by typing in their coordinates. It will also accept coordinates that are stored in a table [for instance, if you have a database or spreadsheet with latitude and longitude or other coordinate data stored in it, you can create a shapefile of points directly from it (you need to convert the database into .dbf format and load it into an ArcView Table Document)]. It will accept a variety of projections (Lat-Long (Decimal Degrees or Degrees-Minutes-Seconds), UTM, MA State Plane) but will not transform between datums (i.e. NAD27 and NAD83) due to a limitation within ArcView. You can also add points in a similar fashion using the Attribute Entry dialog's Add New Point tool. If you add graphic points while you are editing a line theme (using the Parcel Editor dialog or otherwise) you will notice that the graphic points sometimes draw but then instantly disappear. This is due to the node marking/selection environment used by the extension--to see your graphic points, click on the Vertex Edit tool to enter vertex edit mode. If you are working in an area other than Massachusetts (which is where this extension was developed) or are using other projections, you may wish to customize this and other scripts to include additional projections (see the script dkOT.ProjectPoint for details-this requires some familiarity with Avenue, but there are instructions in the script comments). To change a script so it works with the extension in place of the original script, open the script in a new Script Editor document (by clicking the Load System Script button on the Script GUI Button Bar and loading the desired script) and name it the same as the original. Then make your edit changes, and make sure to compile the script when done. ArcView will automatically run your altered script in place of the original extension script. Due to a bug, UTM coordinates were not projected properly in version 1.1--please download the newest version, which has been fixed.
Write X,Y coordinates to theme's table:
This function enables you to write a point (or other feature type) theme's features' x,y coordinates to the theme's table. The X and Y coordinates of each selected point (or feature's center) will be written to fields of your choice. If you wish, you can project these coordinates before writing them, so, for instance, you could write the x,y coordinates of a theme that is in MA State Plane Coordinate System NAD83 into its table in UTM coordinates, Decimal Degrees or Degrees-Minutes-Seconds (there are several formats to choose from for writing Degrees-Minutes-Seconds). Due to a bug, UTM coordinates were not projected properly in version 1.1--please download the newest version, which has been fixed.
Split multipart features into single parts:
ArcView supports multipart shapes, which are shapes that have multiple parts that are not necessarily connected but share the same record in the table. (An oft-used example of this is storing all the Hawaiian Islands as one feature, with one record in the table). The tools on the Parcel Editor work best when you do not have multipart shapes. This function will split multipart shapes into single shapes, each with their own record in the table. The original multipart feature's attributes will be copied into the new single-part features' records, so you may need to re-enter or re-calculate some fields (i.e. acreage/area, length...). This function may cause unintended results if you split "donut" polygons into single part shapes, as you will end up with a donut hole polygon plus the larger polygon, which will now have no hole in it. If you use this function on a polygon theme, make sure to check the results carefully! This function was primarily intended to split up multipart line shapefiles to make them work better with the rest of the extension.
Convert feature(s) to 'survey' file
Use this function to create a 'survey' text file in the same format as actual surveys entered via the Survey Entry dialog, from a line or polygon feature or a series of point features. This file shouldn't be confused with an actual survey, since it is just mathematically derived from a digitized feature, but it can be useful if you need to compare an existing feature (or a series of GPSed boundary markers, etc.) to a list of survey coordinates (i.e. on a deed). This is essentially the reverse of the Draw Survey function on the Parcel Editor menu; it uses the same trigonometry concepts to turn features back into surveys, as opposed to typing in a survey in order to add a feature. This function does not recognize curves, since curves in a shapefile are stored as a series of short straight line segments.
Swap Selection:
This function swaps the selection of each of the active themes in the active View (selects all the unselected features and unselects all the selected features). This is useful, among other things, when you are editing a portion of a polygon shapefile as lines and wish to merge the portion you edited with the rest of the original shapefile. It is also a quick way to select all the features in a theme if you have none selected. This can also be done by opening the theme's attribute table and clicking the Switch Selection button.
Map Help Document location:
***THIS FUNCTION HAS BEEN DISABLED BECAUSE IT CAUSED THE APPLICATION TO CRASH***
You can not currently Alt-click on controls to access the Help document.
For now, just go to the HTML help (either on the web or on your local hard drive) and navigate to the help using the table of contents... Alt-clicking on any of the buttons and tools on the various dialogs will open up a browser with the help document open to the pertinent page (Windows only). Use the Map Help Document Location function to tell the extension where to look for the help document (whether it be a URL on the internet (like www.some-site.com) or on your hard drive, if you have downloaded the help files for easier access).
