The Editor Tab is located in your ribbon bar, labeled Edit. This section offers you various tools to perform shape operations, create, manipulate, and remove features in your feature layers. There are also tools available to Edit Data within a feature layer.
Before you begin to edit, you need to select which layer you would like to edit by selecting it in the Layer To Edit drop down menu on the far left of the ribbon bar. The drop down menu will list all of the layers currently present in your project. Once a layer is selected, only that layer is going to be manipulated so keep that in mind when working with multiple layers. If you would like to edit your feature's attribute data, see Edit Data.
The Select Tool is just that. You can click on a feature to select it, or click and drag to select multiple features. Having multiple items selected will allow you to move them as a whole. The Select Tool is active when the Transform, Move, and Vertex Tools are being used.
The Transform Tool allows you to move, rotate, and scale a selected feature object. You can move the feature by clicking in or on the object and dragging your mouse. To rotate and scale the feature, click and drag on the small box with the four arrows that appears after selecting the feature.
The Move Tool allows you to move one or more features on the map by selecting them, and then clicking and dragging the feature(s) around the map to the desired position.
The Vertex Tool allows you to edit the vertices of an area or line feature type by selecting it. Once selected, small white boxes will appear around the feature. Each of those is a vertex that can be moved by clicking and dragging or removed by right clicking the vertex and selecting Remove Vertex. You can add a vertex to a feature by right clicking where you would like the vertex to be placed, and then selecting Add Vertex.
The Drawing Tool allows you to create new points, lines, or area shapes depending on the type of feature layer you are working on. Once a shape is created, an Attribute window opens and asks you to input the column data for the new shape you have created. If you do not wish for this to open automatically, you can uncheck the box and the bottom of the Attribute window. There are a few different types of drawing tools:
Point - Places a single point on the map and creates a new data row for the newly created point. This tool is only available on a point feature layer.
Multipoint - Places one or more points on the map and creates a new data row for the newly created point(s). After you are done placing points, double click to save the points. This tool is only available on a point feature layer.
Line - Places a line on the map by placing multiple points connected together on the map and creates a new data row for the newly created line. After you are done placing points, double click to save the line. This tool is only available on a line feature layer.
Polygon - Places a polygon on the map by placing multiple points connected together with the first point connected to the last point. After you are done placing points, double click to save the polygon. This tool is only available on an area feature layer.
Rectangle - Places a rectangle on the map by clicking and dragging your mouse. This tool is only available on an area feature layer.
Square - Places a square on the map by clicking and dragging your mouse. This tool is only available on an area feature layer.
Ellipse - Places an ellipse on the map by clicking and dragging your mouse. This tool is only available on an area feature layer.
Circle - Places an ellipse on the map by clicking and dragging your mouse. This tool is only available on an area feature layer.
By default, Snapping Mode is turned off, but if you need to place features up against one another, then you can turn on Snapping Mode by using the drop down menu in your Edit Tab's ribbon bar. The list will show you any layers that you have in your project and you can select multiple layers to snap to. The Distance is how far away the shape has to be to snap to another shape. The Distance can be measured in several different units, including pixels, meters, and miles.
Remove features will remove anything you have drawn with the Drawing Tools before committing the shapes using Save Edits. This button will also remove features that have been selected using the Select Tool.
After you are finished drawing your new shapes, the Save Edits button will commit the shapes to your layer.
If you do not like a change that you have made during editing your layer, you can click the Undo button, and it will step back once for every change you made. The Redo button will step your Undo's forward. Additionally, if you don't like any of the changes since your last save, the Cancel button will revert all changes back to your previous save.