Multiple feature layers in Shortlist seperated by tab?

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01-05-2018 11:14 AM
KellyShunn
New Contributor III

I use the Shortlist app as a monthly highlight of blooms at our gardens, and I have been testing new possible features.

I had the idea to illustrate large areas of plants as polygon feature layers. Of course, plants will change every month, so I cannot just use the same polygons for an entire year  Before I spend too much time down a path that may not work I thought I would ask:

Is there a way to edit the source code to define a filter for what layers are shown in each tab?

Related: If it is possible, would it work better to have a different feature layer for each month or to have one feature layer with a tab_name column to separate in the same way as the point layer?

Hopefully I explain this well enough.

Kelly S.

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4 Replies
RupertEssinger
Frequent Contributor

Hi Kelly

Sounds like an interesting project. Story Map Shortlist is based on point features. You could have a tab for each month and show that month's plants as points in each tab: either by adding them interactively in the Builder or driving your Shortlist from a feature layer in a web map that you keep up-to-date, using the tab_name field in the data to control which tab each point feature is displayed in.

You could add polygon features as layer(s) into the underlying web map used by your Shortlist so the points get drawn on top of those polygons and show what they are, but in the Builder you can't configure a Shortlist to show different supporting layers for different tabs. Supporting layers don't support a tab_name column to control the appearance of their features on the map (it's an interesting idea though). You would have to self-host and customize the Shortlist in order to have a different supporting layers appear for different tabs. I'll see if we can post some tips for doing that. 

If you want your readers to be able to switch between different tabs and see different maps or layers for which you have complete control over what is displayed, you might also have a look at the Story Map Series app template. This isn't data-driven and doesn't have the thumbnails in the tabs like Shortlist does, but it does let you easily configure exactly what you want each tab to display, including different layers and extents for different tabs, or even completely different web maps for different tabs.

Hope that helps.

Rupert

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KellyShunn
New Contributor III

Robert,

I have been working with the old and the beta shortlist app for over a year now, and I am familiar with the builder features. The original iteration of this web app used some custom style coding and was hosted on our server, so planning to do that again would not be a large problem.

The story map series would not work for the purpose because two important features (large images and geolocation) would be lost. Either I keep the images by embedding the shortlist app into map series and lose geolocation or I just use the map in the map series and then the only view of pictures is through the small popups.

I appreciate any coding tips you can send. I understand if my request is difficult to complete, it was worth asking or I would have never known the limits.

In case it cannot be done, I have one more question: Will there there an update to the Shortlist beta app that would allow multiple pictures per point? Or an update to add a splash page?

My thinking is, if I cannot illustrate on the map that an area should be explored, then the ability to have multiple images or a splash page could show a screenshot of a map or a zoomed out picture of the many species in bloom in an area. All this is to hopefully encourage guests to wander through areas they might not have explored.

Thank you for the help and sparking some new ideas,

Kelly

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RupertEssinger
Frequent Contributor

Hi Kelly

See this post for info about showing multiple photos per place (not possible yet):
Add more images/video to Shortlist Story Map 

That enhancement is down the road still. There are no plans to add a splash page to Shortlist.

I would definitely not try and embed one story map inside another for what you are describing. Your project sounds like it would be better to keep things really simple.

Rupert

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RupertEssinger
Frequent Contributor

Here's a Story Map Journal about parks and different locations in those spaces that I think is a really good pattern. The authors used story actions in each section to let people browse different locations in each park.

Wellington's Treasured Spaces /  Mahere Whenua Kura o Pōneke

http://wcc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=cc9b48a06b324b538bec40d1b221e48d 

Also perhaps browse some of the story maps that have been created about botanical gardens.  Here's  an ArcGIS Online search that pulls some of them up, sorted by number of views:

https://www.arcgis.com/home/search.html?q=story%20map%20botanical%20garden&t=content&focus=applicati... 

Rupert

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