topic Re: Use Button to filter list in ArcGIS Experience Builder Questions

Use Button to filter list

ChrisRoberts2 — Sun, 19 Nov 2023 22:45:18 GMT

Hi All

Is it possible to use the button widget to filter the values in a List Widget? For example I would a couple of buttons with the main stakeholder types. When the user clicks one of the Buttons, say Government, the corresponding list filters down to only show those that are a Government stakeholder.

Thanks in advance

Re: Use Button to filter list

NBC — Sun, 19 Nov 2023 23:25:12 GMT

Hi Chris,

I don't think the button widget can do this yet. One workaround I would suggest is to create a separate layer containing a single record for each stakeholder type and use this as your data input for a separate list widget. You'll then be able to filter the main list with this new list by Add a trigger > Record selection changes > Framework > Filter Data Records. Once you've got the new list set up you can format things to look like buttons.
Below is an example of one I've done recently where its filters weekday/weekends.
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/aaaa20adb7a740249d338f9a071c46a8

Cheers

Andrew

Re: Use Button to filter list

ChrisRoberts2 — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 00:47:09 GMT

Nice tip!

Thanks Andrew

Re: Use Button to filter list

MichaelGaigg — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 05:54:07 GMT

Hi @ChrisRoberts2 - this is very easy actually, use the filter, either the built-in filter of the list widget or the filter widget itself. As long as the values you want to filter are part of the layer you display in the list, this works just fine.

There are two things to do when you build your expression:

- set the source type (values you want to display) to Unique, or if you only want to show some, the change to Unique (predefined) and set them there (this is also how you'd remove the "all" option if that's not what you want to include)

- change the input style from dropdown list to pill selector

Good luck!

Re: Use Button to filter list

MichaelGaigg — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 06:56:10 GMT

Actually, if you want to remove the "All" option, you need to change the operator to "is any of", that will leave you with the available options only. Still set the input style to pill selector

Re: Use Button to filter list

RobertAnderson3 — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 15:40:21 GMT

Hi @MichaelGaigg

I love the pill selector option, this is what I'm using in my AGOL based ExB, two issues though.

With Unique (predefined) there is no Choose input style button, so the pill selector look is not an option?

With using is any of to remove the -ALL- it turns the filter into a select multiple, I want to keep it as a single selection filter, but without the -ALL-

So neither of these solutions really get me where I want to be with my filter.

Re: Use Button to filter list

MichaelGaigg — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 16:04:25 GMT

@RobertAnderson3 yeah, last resort is to use Unique, which gives you exactly what you need (plus the all option), then wrap the filter into a fixed panel

and offset the filter itself by -70px (or whatever hides the all option)

Re: Use Button to filter list

RobertAnderson3 — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 17:04:36 GMT

A bit of a goofy option for a workaround but I may have to run with that for the time being. The offset might be a challenge to directly offset considering different device sizes, but I'll give it a shot, thanks!

If you could nudge the team working on such things to either add a setting to get rid of the all, or add the pill selector to Unique (predefined) that would be great too! (I feel like the pill should be simple? But I know I have no idea)

Thank you!

Re: Use Button to filter list

MichaelGaigg — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 18:16:46 GMT

Well, I hate to say this, but you are asking for a radio buttons list. UX best practices for radio buttons require that user must select exactly one choice and this choice is mutually exclusive. As a result, you should select an option by default and users can *not* unselect the options (just toggle to another one). This behavior conflicts with filtering best practices because users won't be able to ever see all the options.

Re: Use Button to filter list

RobertAnderson3 — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 20:16:15 GMT

Ah if it's supposed to be something different that's fair, just quickly then, in my case I am looking to show infrastructure projects based on the year started, designed to replace the Shortlist Storymap template.

I have a layer view created to not include unapproved projects (year set as 0) or in the future I will do the same for older projects once this app has been around longer and they're not as relevant to the public.

I have a default option on the filter (2023) and only want the user to be able to pick by year, no need for an all option, and have it filter the list widget and the map widget. The pills are more user friendly than the drop down I find. The filter was just the cleanest way I found to do this.

If what I'm looking to do is radio buttons for a list, how is it recommended to implement this in ExB? Is there an existing widget/development strategy, or a planned widget in the future?

Thank you and have a great weekend!

Re: Use Button to filter list

MichaelGaigg — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 20:45:45 GMT

Ah, thanks for posting this example, this makes a lot of sense. In your case the radio list is correct because you do have a default value and you toggle between options to filter the same dataset. Actually the previous version with tabs used the wrong UI element (tabs are supposed to navigate between different sections of a site, not to filter). I like your visual design too, look really nice, dark themes are difficult but you came up with a nice palette.

Re: Use Button to filter list

RobertAnderson3 — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 13:04:21 GMT

@MichaelGaigg No problem, sometimes the easiest is just to show what we're looking at trying to do! And thank you I'm glad you like it! I can share the whole thing with you too if you'd be interested in seeing before it goes live.

Okay so radio button list is the right thing to do, is this possible to do in Experience Builder? Or is the filter widget as I have it set up the best way to do it right now?

The previous version is a direct Esri Classic Story Map template that has been deprecated, hence the need to rebuild it. I'd definitely be interested in talking about the challenges I've been facing in rebuilding this classic Esri favourite!

Re: Use Button to filter list

ahargreaves_FW — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 20:52:33 GMT

@RobertAnderson3 and @MichaelGaigg I'm after exclusive radio buttons (or pill buttons) also. Here's my use case:

Dataset has data covering last 30 days
I want filtering options covering: 24hrs, 72hrs, 5 days, 10 days, 30 days
I can easily do this via Filter widget but the user is able to select multiple filters and that leads to a frustrating user experience.

Re: Use Button to filter list

GISNCC — Sat, 10 Aug 2024 09:56:56 GMT

Hi Robert. @RobertAnderson3 I am doing a similar site with an app with various projects that I want to filter by things such as project type or year. I am wondering how you configured your pills to look so nice.. For the out of the box filter I am getting this type of look with no options under Style to change the colour, rounded edge on the pill etc. Thanks heaps!

Re: Use Button to filter list

RobertAnderson3 — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 16:27:14 GMT

Hi @GISNCC

Unfortunately it has been a long time since I've looked at this, I don't remember how I got these set up this way, I went in quickly to check and I don't see options either. I vaguely remember it being one of the pre-set styles that would pop up in ExB with certain elements but I might be making that up.

Sorry I can't be of more assistance right now, hopefully someone else in the community can be!

Re: Use Button to filter list

Boyang_Wang — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 13:38:12 GMT

Can you explain a little further on "create a separate layer containing a single record for each stakeholder type"? Do you meaning creating one layer for only Weekday features and another layer for only Weekend features?

Re: Use Button to filter list

mpboyle — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 17:59:52 GMT

Came across this post when looking for a similar workflow.

I wanted to mention now that ExB supports creating feature sets from Arcade, you can create a feature set on the fly using Arcade to return distinct "categories" based on field values from your target feature layer. The resulting Arcade feature set can then be used as the selecting list using the same workflow as above.

Below is a sample Arcade script I used to generate a feature set that was then used as a selecting list:

// set portal var p = Portal('...{url}...'); // set item id var item_id = '...{item id}...' // set layer index var layer_index = 0 // set desired field var field = '...{field name}...' // set where clause var where = field + ' IS NOT NULL' // set order by clause var order_by = field + ' ASC' // set base feature set var fs_1 = FeatureSetByPortalItem(p, item_id, layer_index, [field], false); // set distinct feature set var fs_2 = OrderBy(Distinct(Filter(fs_1, where), field), order_by) // return distinct feature set return fs_2