USING ARCVIEW

NOTE: The materials on these pages--both in printed form and on the World Wide Web--are to be used only in association with the Virginia Tech IPM CRSP. Reproduction or use of these pages, in part or in full, for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited. Those wishing to reproduce or use these pages for non-profit, educational purposes should contact the author at LGROSSMN@VT.EDU for permission.

Step 2: Starting a New Project and Saving Projects

Starting a New Project

and then click on the New button just above the icon. This produces an empty window for View1.

We want to add information to this blank view. The information that we will add is called a Theme.

From Step 1 we know that a "Theme" is the term used for a map layer in ArcView containing both spatial and attribute data (the latter are in database tables, which you do not see at first). A Theme is a file containing graphic information required to draw a set of geographic features together with information about those features. As we add themes, they will be listed on the left side of the View window in the Table of Contents along with their legends that will represent them on the map. Examples of themes are gardens, rivers, roads, cities, land types, etc.

We now want to add a few themes to our blank "View1." To do so, go to the buttons at the top of the window and click on the ADD THEME button , which brings up the Add Theme dialog box.

Double-click on the C:\ root on the right of the dialog box to bring up the list of directories. Navigate to the directory "cardi"

and double-click on it.

Notice that a list of subdirectories appears below the directory "cardi" and a list files appears on the left.(Note: The actual files and subdirectories (if any) that will appear in this dialog box will vary depending upon what is loaded onto your hard drive.)

The list of files on the left are the themes that can be loaded into View 1. Click on the theme file "ja_coast" on the left and press the OK button on the right.

Notice that the theme "Ja_coast" now appears in the Table of Contents on the left of the View.

But nothing appears on the right. To display the map of a theme, you need to click on the small box to the left of a theme name so that a check mark appears in the box.

We want to add several more themes. You can add more than one theme at a time from the list on the left of the Add Theme dialog box by first single-clicking on the first theme you want, then hold down the SHIFT key, and then select the other themes you want. When they are all highlighted, click on the OK button to add them all to the View at the same time.

Go ahead and add the following themes:

bpkcrops.shp
bpkprcl.shp
jarivers
parbnd
stcath_s

You View1 should now look like this:

The colors on your computer that are used to illustrate the various themes in the Table of Contents, however, will vary from those here because ArcView chooses colors randomly.

Saving Projects

To save our work now, go to the menu at the top of the screen and click on File and select Save Project from the drop-down menu.

This will bring up the Save Project As window.

Note that on the left of the window is the File name: "proj1.apr." (You can give your file any name, but it must have an .apr extension.) All projects saved in ArcView have the extension ".apr" On the right of the window you can select the directory in which you want to place your project. I am placing the file in my directory CRSP. Click on the OK button.

When ready to exit ArcView, click on File in the menu at the top and select Exit from the drop-down list.

When you start ArcView again later, select File and Open Project from the drop-down list, not "New Project," because we have saved our work in a project.

This will bring up the Open Project window.

Navigate to the directory in which your project is located, double-click on the directory name on the right of the window, and then double-click on the project file name on the left of the window.

After you finish working with your project and want to save your work again, click on File in the menu at the top of the screen and select Save Project again.

This time we do not get the "Save Project As" window because the file already has a name.

When ready to Exit ArcView, you will usually be given the prompt: "Do You Want to Save Changes to proj1.apr?"

Select Yes if you want to save the changes.

If you want to later change the name of your project, you first have to be in the Project Window, which you can shift to by selecting Window from the menu at the top of the screen and selecting "proj1.apr" from the drop-down list.

Then select File from the menu and Save Project As from the drop-down list and enter the new name that you want in the "Save Project As" window and click on the OK button.

Before leaving, let us also take a look at the top of the screen.

Note the menu and sets of buttons at the top of the ArcView window. We will be using several of these throughout this tutorial.

The status bar at the bottom of the ArcView window (not seen above) describes what each button does. Demonstrate for yourself the purpose of the status bar by moving your cursor over each of the buttons below the menu. You should see a short description of the effect of using each one in the status bar at the bottom. You can also see a shorter description in the yellow box below your cursor as you pause at each button.
[Return to beginning]

[GO TO STEP 3]