Resizing, repositioning, and renaming elements

Resizing and repositioning elements

Resizing elements is one of the most common diagram properties that is changed in a model. To change the model diagram, select the model element and resize the element. In the example below, the blue oval represents input data, and the green oval represents output data. Notice that the label on the output table has its text wrapped and is difficult to read. You can resize the oval by clicking it to show its blue resize handles. Click and hold a resize handle and drag your mouse to resize. If you click in the center of the oval and drag the mouse, you can reposition the oval anywhere on the ModelBuilder diagram area.

After resizing, the model becomes more readable.

Renaming elements

The default names of tool and variable elements are automatically generated by ModelBuilder when you add the element. Variable names are assigned according to the variable type. For data variables, the element name is the name of the dataset; for value variables, the name is the same as the parameter name. If the element name already exists in the model, it is appended with a unique number. Often, these default names do not make sense or have long names. In such cases, you can change names to make more intuitive sense.

Steps:

1. Select and right-click the element.
2. Click Rename.
3. Type in the new name and click OK.
• Changing the name of a variable does not affect the contents of the variable. For example, a variable contains the value E:/Data/DocData/Example.gdb/Roads. Renaming the variable name from Roads to Tunnels does not change its value on the disk but only changes the variable name.
• Renaming a variable does not update the name of another variable.