ArcGIS Web Editor is a web-based editing app that provides a focused, efficient experience for maintaining authoritative GIS data, whether you’re editing feature geometry on a map or updating attributes in a table. It lets teams edit with confidence and gives organizations a way to deliver the right editing tools to editors of any experience level.
What’s New
This November 2026 update for ArcGIS Web Editor in ArcGIS Online introduces new editing tools and enhancements that help teams edit with more speed, accuracy, and control. From transforming and measuring features to drawing circles and rectangles, these additions make it easier to get to the right result the first time, right from your browser.
Move, Resize, and Rotate Features with the Transform Tool
The Transform tool lets you move, rotate, and resize selected features directly in Web Editor, eliminating the need to redraw features or switch to a desktop workflow. Moving is helpful for repositioning features to their correct location. Rotation is useful for assets like signs, valves, or parked vehicles where orientation matters, while resizing helps match polygon footprints, such as buildings, to real-world dimensions.
Measurement Tool for Fast, Accurate Distances
The Measurement tool lets you measure distances and areas on the map, supporting quick checks of feature size, spacing, or coverage without leaving the editing environment. This helps teams validate data on the spot and answer common “how big” or “how far” questions during editing or review.
Draw Circles and Rectangles
Create circles and rectangles directly, in just a couple of clicks, instead of approximating them with freehand polygons. The result is faster feature creation, less cleanup, and cleaner, more consistent geometry.
Create Circles: The Circle tool lets you click to place the center, then move the pointer and you can drag and drop handles to resize, hold Shift when resizing to maintain the aspect ratio.
Create Rectangles: The Rectangle tool lets you click to place the center and use interactive handlebars to resize—press Shift to lock a perfect square.
Design update for the Split tool
The Split tool now shows a live preview of the impending split before you commit, so you can see exactly how a feature will be divided before applying the change. This makes it easier to position your cut with confidence, reduces trial-and-error, and helps avoid unintended or inaccurate splits, especially on complex features where the result isn’t obvious from the cut line alone.
The Freehand Drawing Tool Has Been Renamed to Streaming
The Freehand drawing tool is now called Streaming, aligning its name with ArcGIS Pro for a more consistent editing experience across the ArcGIS platform. Streaming lets you sketch continuous, freeform shapes by dragging across the map; vertices are created as you move, and the shape finalizes when you release.
Summary
These updates are available now in ArcGIS Web Editor. Explore the new Transform and Measurement tools and try the new drawing tools. You can also take advantage of configurable shared templates, which automatically selects the default tool and displays only the tools you’ve specified on the toolbar.
Together, these updates make Web Editor a more complete and capable editing environment, reducing the need to switch to desktop workflows for everyday editing tasks. We’re excited to keep building on this momentum in upcoming releases. Try the new tools today, and let us know what you’d like to see next.
Additional Resources
New to ArcGIS Web Editor or just looking for more information? Here are some helpful resources.
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