topic Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters in ArcGIS Experience Builder Questions

De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

JayJohnsonWashoeCounty — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 20:22:45 GMT

When I navigate to different features in Experience Builder I see a URL that (apparently) includes some identifier related to either the feature I've clicked on or maybe the location. Can anyone de-mystify the RED part of the Experience Builder URL below? Maybe Jianxia Song‌?

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/2fe9e44b691a4e32a9f0b84df16531c0?data_id=dataSource_3-ElectionGeography_795a03f022d2420ca49bf52b79aa80b5_5103_3112_2857_6478_6139%3A414

Obviously, what I'd like to do is be able to build URL strings to be able to direct users from an external web page to a specific location/feature within Experience Builder.

However, even though this portion of the URL appears to change as you navigate to different features/locations, it doesn't APPEAR to do anything at all if you past the whole URL into a new browser tab.

Thanks,

Jay

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

Jianxia — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 20:12:38 GMT

Jay,

Unlike Web AppBuilder, Experience Builder uses the structured URL. As a result, the URL for an experience contains its state information directly, so a user can easily share, without relying on a dedicated state component such as URL parameters in WAB, in order for others to see the experience in the same state. The structured URL is made up of the URL path and the URL parameter. The URL path is constructed for an experience or a web site to be deeply indexed therefore easily searchable by Google and other third-party search engines. The experience id and page default to the URL path, for example, <root path>/<appId>/page/<pageId>. On the other hand, the view, data, and others follow the URL parameter (aka query parameter), commonly used by ArcGIS web apps. For example, ?views=<viewId1, viewId2> defines which views to show when an experience is loaded. An experience url may look something like this:

<root path>/<appId>/page/<pageId>/?views=<viewId1, viewId2>&data_.id=<1>

Currently, Experience Builder has these main URL query parameters:

?views=v1, v2,..: As Experience Builder supports multiple views in a page, this stores user currently selected views
?dlg=dialog1: this stores user currently opened dialog (window)
?data_id=dsId:id1+id2 : this stores user currently selected data records

Although the example you mentioned does not seem making any difference, the following example shares the exact state I am seeing with you other than the default:

//experience.arcgis.com/experience/5947e2d55c1846e1b4952851aa97efe8/page/page_5/?data_id=dataSource_1-Fun_5299%3A4&views=view_2

Does it make sense? I would recommend to use the Share widget to get the shorten url for sharing though, if applicable. Also. would it be helpful if we document the url pattern as mentioned?

Thanks,

Jianxia

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

JayJohnsonWashoeCounty — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 20:39:27 GMT

Thanks Jianxia. Yes, documenting the URL pattern was exactly what I was looking for.

I'll try to work with what you have above to see if I can get where I need to be.

From within my Experience, I click on a specific feature and the webmap pans to that feature. The URL in the browser becomes this:

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/2fe9e44b691a4e32a9f0b84df16531c0?data_id=dataSource_3-ElectionGeography_795a03f022d2420ca49bf52b79aa80b5_5103_3112_2857_6478_6139%3A397

The first part is my ExpBuilder app URL and the hosted layer that contains the feature I've clicked on:

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/2fe9e44b691a4e32a9f0b84df16531c0?data_id=dataSource_3-ElectionGeography_795a03f022d2420ca49bf52b79aa80b5

But AFTER that, there is a mysterious string of numbers that I can't interpret: _5103_3112_2857_6478_6139%3A397

It does not appear that those numbers are a straight-forward reference to the selected feature.

Jay

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

JanSarata — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 14:43:52 GMT

Hello @Jianxia ,

I would like to ask you for the additional questions to this topic.

Is it possible to turn off this functionality? Turn off this automatic state parameters in URL?
Do you plan to add another state parameters such ZOOM or EXTENT?

Thank you in advance for you answer.

Jan

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

Jianxia — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 18:49:51 GMT

Hi Jan,

Would you mind letting us know the reason that you'd like to turn off the state parameters in URL?

Yes, adding more state parameters like zoom and extent, similar to WAB url parameters, is on the road map. Will update you once we have a timeline.

Thanks,

Jianxia

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

JanSarata — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 16:15:35 GMT

Hi @Jianxia ,

firstly, thank you for you respond.

Secondly, the reason to switch url states off is to ease the process of testing new Experience Builder app/widget while developing. If I need to refresh the app/builder to see the changes, the state is preserved. But in some testing scenarios it would be fine to have it always at its initial state.

So basically the reason is for testing/developing purposes.

Thank you,

Jan

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

Jianxia — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 00:04:11 GMT

A good point Jan.

An enhancement to turn off the state URL during development and testing has been submitted.

Thanks,

Jianxia

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

JanSarata — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 08:46:31 GMT

Thank you @Jianxia

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

PeterKT — Mon, 10 May 2021 04:49:06 GMT

Hi,

How would you zoom to a feature on the map using the url parameters. I can get the url params to open the window and it highlights it in my list in the page. But my zoom to feature is on list selection which appears to not to be selected using the url params.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

JanSarata — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 12:21:32 GMT

Hi @Jianxia ,

could I ask you if there is any update regarding turning off the automatic URL state parameters?

I have another scenario where I need to have them switched off.

We are developing (off panel) ExB widget which takes URL parameters (ids and layer names) and select and zoom to that features in map.

Thank you,

Jan

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

Jianxia — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:12:50 GMT

Hi @JanSarata , this issue is currently in the backlog. Thanks for sharing the use case. I will add it in.

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

JanSarata — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 06:24:25 GMT

Thank you for the update, @Jianxia

Jan

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

EmilyMcLeanACTGOV — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 06:30:50 GMT

Hi @Jianxia ,

Just wondering if there is a url parameter to display a specific sheet within a table?

Thanks,

Emily

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

Jianxia — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 17:57:23 GMT

Hi Emily, this would require widgets to support URL parameters, which is not available yet. It would be great if you can summit an enhancement to Esri Support.

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

EmilyMcLeanACTGOV — Sun, 29 Aug 2021 23:45:29 GMT

Thanks for the response @Jianxia !

For anyone interested, I have also logged this as an idea: Experience Builder Widgets to Support URL Parameters

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

EmilyMcLeanACTGOV — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:39:33 GMT

Hi @PeterKT

This blog post might be able to help with your question.

Thanks,

Emily

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

MarcHoogerwerf_TAP — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 14:40:13 GMT

Hi Jianxia,

Could you please elaborate a bit on the url parameters? I've tried to find more details in the Experience builder documentation but could not find any.

I have a scenario where I have one page that displays visitor information for our offices and sites and a data source that contains all the relevant attributes (office hours, emergency numbers, links to emergency evacuation web maps, etc). If have defined views on the data source, Office1, Office2, OfficeN.

I would like to use these views as parameters for the page, like ?view=Office1. Is this possible with data views?

regards,

Marc

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

StefanFreelan — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 14:14:14 GMT

@ Jianxia: Please correct me if I am wrong (I hope so)...

As best I can tell, the structured URL examples you provide ONLY link to the default map extent and not to a specific scale or location within the map. Is this correct? Is there ANY way to provide a link to an EB site that delivers a map at a specific location (center=, level=, extent=, bookmark=...)??

Likewise your example (and the Share widget) do not seem to retain information on layers that are turned On. Is there ANY way to provide a link to an EB site that delivers a map with specific layers turned On/Off (showLayers=, hideLayers=, etc.)??

I understand that URL parameters (per se) aren't an option with EB, but I'm hoping that there is something that I am missing in terms of generating / sharing a EB URL with more information than just the default map view / extent / scale...

And finally, while the EB structured URL path does change when a feature is selected (retaining this selection), it does NOT appear to retain location / extent information information. So if I have a feature selected that is outside the default map extent it will not be visible (to the user) using the shared URL. Likewise, the URL does not retain layer visibility information. So if I turn on a (non-default layer) feature and select a feature the URL will not turn that layer on, leaving the user unable to see the selection (unless they know to turn the layer on). And... even if I've selected a feature in a layer that is on by default and within the default map extent, the pop-up (that was open when the feature was first selected) does not pop-up via the shared URL...

Exp Builder is nice, but seems to lack some pretty basic web map functionality... (and yes, I know, Exp B is more than "just" a web map, with additional possibilities and thus different limitations. I'd happily be using Web AppBuilder - IF only it was being developed in parallel with EB for things like Group Layers...).

thanks for any insight you can provide,

~stefan

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

Jianxia — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 23:55:17 GMT

@MarcHoogerwerf_TAP , view in the URL parameter is referred to the view in a Section but a data view.

Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters

Jianxia — Sat, 09 Oct 2021 00:02:19 GMT

@StefanFreelan , what you are looking for are url parameters similar to those in Web AppBuilder. ExB does not have them yet. Currently we are working on migrating core widgets over like Edit, Print etc. If WAB works for you, I would recommend using it