| Situating And Creating An ArcView Project | |
| You can recognize ArcView project files in your directories by the extension at the end of the filename (.apr stands for Arcview PRoject). Setting up a project well saves a lot of time and effort later. Except for saving frequently, these other project setup steps will generally not need to be repeated for the usage duration of this particular project. | |
| 1. Directory Structure | In your File Manager program, decide on and create a directory for all your ArcView work, and stick with it after that. To avoid headaches later, each ArcView project (i.e., US75_5may98.apr) chould also be placed in its own subdirectory (i.e., ../myprojects/US75_5may98/..). This way, you can create many shapefiles within this project and retain project portability when it's done. |
| 2. Create Project | Start ArcView, create a new project, go "File" menu "Save Project As..." navigate to your project drive and directory (i.e., ../myprojects/US75_5may98/), name the project (i.e., US75_5may98.apr), and click "OK". (Saving now will allow the upcoming extensions step to correctly reflect the available extensions.) |
| 3. Set Units And Working Directory | The "Map Units" and "Distance Units" affect how your project will spatially interrelate the layers you will be introducing and what units your distance measurements will be reported in. Setting the working directory helps ensure future shapefiles made within this project will save into the same directory as the project file. For both, a View window must be open (doubleclick the "Views" icon) and activated (at the forefront with its top bar showing boldly). Next, go "View" menu "Properties...", alter the two pulldown Map Units and Distance Units menu blanks from "unknown" to "meters" (do the Map Units first), and click "OK". Finally, go "File" menu "Set Working Directory...", enter the drive and path which is the home of your .apr project file (i.e., l:\osagislib\production\myprojects\US75_5may98), and click "OK". |
| 4. Save Project As... | This project not remember what you just did until you save it, and the best way to save the project is to go "File" menu "Save Project As..." because you can confirm that it is indeed saving into the directory it is supposed to save into. In working with shapefiles (a.k.a., themes) and tables (a.k.a., attribute tables), you'll be prompted to save them whenever you leave edit mode; but large portions of your work (i.e., graphics, layouts,...) are only saved by saving the overall project as we have done here. So, go "File" menu "Save" regularly throughout your ArcView session. |
| 5. Confirm Extensions On | Now that the new project knows where it resides, its name, and the working directory to save shapefiles to, we can check to see that extensions vital to running certain processes are available in this project. Go "File" menu "Extensions...". At the LEFT, make sure to checkmark these boxes (if they are not already): Cad Reader Geoprocessing JPEG (JFIF) Image Support OSATools by GIS@OSA (if this is in the list) TIFF 6.0 Image Support Xtools Extension - Meters / Hectares Version (if this is in the list) DO NOT checkmark the "Make Default" box. Now, click "OK". Do the "File" menu "Save" again finally, this time to implant these functionalities into the current project. |