We are proud to introduce ArcGIS Web Editor with the June 2024 update of ArcGIS Online. Whether you are a GIS novice or a seasoned analyst, Web Editor has something to offer for everyone. This blog will walk through five tips and tricks to have you editing like a pro in no time.
- Explore drawing tools
- Use shortcuts
- Leverage editing constraints
- Use the selection pane
- Configure settings
Tip 1: Explore drawing tools
When creating or editing a feature in ArcGIS Online, the default drawing tool is a line. While this suits most use cases, you may want to create more complex features. This is where drawing tools come in! Rather than sticking with Line, explore our additional drawing tools (below) when creating, reshaping, or splitting a feature in Web Editor.
 Line |
Creates straight line segments |
 Right angle |
Creates 90-degree angles between vertices while drawing |
 Freehand |
Creates free-form shapes while you click and drag |
To learn more, see the draw features documentation.
Tip 2: Use shortcuts
Shortcuts: The GIS editor’s best friend. No one can deny how helpful shortcuts are to help you get into a groove while editing and save unnecessary mouse clicks. The biggest barrier to entry is simply trying to remember which shortcut does what. Fortunately, Web Editor provides two ways to easily view and search for keyboard shortcuts.
Shortcut tooltips
Want a more direct way to view shortcuts for your most used tools? Enable Shortcut keys on tooltips in the Settings pane to display them when hovering over tools in Web Editor.
Shortcuts menu
To view all the shortcuts available in Web Editor, click the Shortcuts 
icon on the Settings (dark) toolbar. From here, browse through the list or use the search bar to find a specific shortcut.
Tip 3: Leverage editing constraints and tooltips
Editing tooltips
Tooltips are a great way to provide more context while you are drawing or editing a feature. Displayed in a floating menu near your cursor, tooltips show the following values while you edit:
- Distance from the last vertex
- Deflection (angle)
- Direction
- Latitude and Longitude
- Z values (if enabled)
- Area (for polygons)
Tooltips are enabled by default but can be toggled on or off through the snapping menu or by pressing the T keyboard shortcut.
To learn more about tooltips, see our blog article Map a Point by Coordinates in ArcGIS Online with Tooltips.
Editing constraints
Tired of using the measurement tool to estimate distances while editing? Try editing constraints! Editing constraints give you precise control over measurements while editing features, for example deflection (angle) or distance from the last placed vertex. To input a value, simply press Tab (while drawing) with tooltips enabled or use one of the keyboard shortcuts.
For a full list of editing constraints shortcuts, see editing constraints.
Tip 4: Use the selection pane
The days of selecting one feature at a time are over! Web Editor supports selecting features in bulk from the map, the table, or through an attribute query. However, when working with more than one feature it can be difficult to understand what features you have selected and refine them as needed. This is where the Selection pane comes in.
The Selection pane categorizes features into collapsible groups based on the layer to make browsing simple. Additionally, hovering over a selection in the list highlights the corresponding feature on the map to make it easily identifiable.
To refine the selection further, use the X to remove individual features and groups or use the Select only this feature option in the overflow menu.
To learn more, see the Selection documentation.
Tip 5: Configure settings
Want even more control over your editing experience in Web Editor? Take a look at the Settings 
pane on the Settings (dark) toolbar. From here you can control whether the Attributes pane appears after creating a feature, toggle the delete features prompt and more. Keep an eye on the Settings pane as we will continue to expand it in future updates.
Summary
We hope the tips and tricks we explored in this blog article help you become comfortable with Web Editor and allow for more streamlined editing workflows.
To learn more about ArcGIS Web Editor, check out our blog article ArcGIS Web Editor – Your Data Maintenance New Best Friend. The Web Editor team will also be at the upcoming 2024 User Conference, so stop by our booth at the Showcase or add the following session(s) to your agenda:
ArcGIS: Exploring the New Web Editor
- Tuesday, Jul 16 | 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM PDT
- Thursday, Jul 18 | 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM PDT
Until then, happy editing!
Thank you! We looked for this last week and couldn’t find it (because the blog wasn’t available yet). We were going nuts. Templates are due tomorrow for multiple services and this saved us.
So happy it helped!
Thanks for the article! This approach doesn’t look to work with conditional expressions from what I can tell. Even just making a duplicate form with cond. expressions will break the form from what I can tell.
Hi Randall – thank you for the comment and apologies for the delay in response! I just tested this and was able to successfully copy over a form containing conditional visibility to another layer in a different map using AGO assistant. A few things could have happened that caused your form to break, most likely revolving around ensuring the entire object is copied over. Make sure that the entire formInfo object is copied over including the expressionInfos property. If you don’t include this property, the expressions will not carry over. If you’re replacing an existing formInfo object, be sure you… Read more »
I need to create and manage Field Maps for many projects in dozens of parks. We’re likely to reach the limit of 16 offline areas per map fairly quickly, so duplicating maps should be a big help. This article mentions making “slight adjustments” to the copy of the map. Do you mean to imply that some types of changes would cause problems with the original map or forms? Is it okay to add or remove layers, and if so, does this apply to both operational and reference layers? Change a form or create a form for an additional layer? Filters?… Read more »
Hi Jill – thank you for your comment. I’m glad to hear this is helpful for your park workflow! I used the phrase “slight adjustments” for the context of the scenario in this blog post – it was not meant to imply that changes made to the map copy will cause problems to the original map. You can add and remove operational and reference layers, edit the form for additional and existing layers, and edit other properties of the map copy without changing the original map. If you make changes at the layer level, such as enabling sync, allowing editing,… Read more »
Is the technique of copying forms available in the Map Viewer as well as Field Maps? I’ve attempted copying the forminfo in the AGO Assistant without luck and I’m wondering if it’s just not an option for my application (or if I need to do more troubleshooting).
I was able to use the AGO Assistant approach, great instructions. For the python instructions, it would be helpful to include directions for folks that use SAML authentication.
When I look in AGO Assistant there is not a formInfo JSON object in my layer. Is it because I saved my form to the layer and not to the map? If so is there another way for me to create the formInfo JSON object?
I’m in the same boat as Jim as we will need to make several maps for several project and I would like to reuse the form on a new layer without having to re-create it every time.
I used AGO Assistant and copied everything over. I’m looking at the syntax and everything seems to be there but it’s not working. I even copied the entire JSON and it did not work either. Thankfully, I kept all of my forms open in a separate browser. So that I can painstakingly copy everything over one by one. There must be a better way. ugh