topic Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer in ArcGIS Online Questions

Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

MelissaBrooks — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 23:34:25 GMT

Hi there,

I've been trying to follow the instructions on this post:

A New Way To Add Web Styles in Map Viewer (esri.com) (@RussRoberts)

First of all, thanks for this. A great improvement to the web style workflow.

However, I've had some trouble, and I hope you are able to help. I cannot see my published web style in the list when I get to the "Added Styles" step in the map viewer.

I've cleaned all symbol names and keys in my stylx file i.e. there are no odd characters. I just can't see it when I go to add the style like you've described above.

Note: I can see them when I add the item to the Organisation's 2D symbol group configured in the Orgs Map settings, so I know they work okay >> This post is not about how to add them to the Organisation 2D symbol group, but how to add them to a web map like shown in the blog post above.

Do you have any tips on how to get it to show up as you've shown above? I'd like to use this alternative "Draft" workflow more (once I get it working)

- The symbols are point symbols using PNG but I've also tried SVG with the same result.

Any help much appreciated

Thanks!

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

RussRoberts — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 11:26:20 GMT

If you can share that web style with me I can take a look(you can invite russell_jsapi into a group with the styles). What version of Pro are these being published with?

We do hide web styles in the add dialog if they are

- Already added through the add workflow and exist under Add Styles

- Added through the org group - Displayed under Vector Symbols

- No symbols in the style are present with the geometry being styled

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

MelissaBrooks — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 23:05:32 GMT

Hi Russell,

Thanks for getting back so soon.

I am using Pro 2.9.1

I've added you to a group with the published Stylx and Web style item.

Thanks for helping to troubleshoot this.

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

RussRoberts — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 23:48:41 GMT

Thanks, I think the issue will be the version of Pro. At that time there was no client consuming web styles of different geometries. When Map Viewer brought in support for point lines and polygons we required a special flag on the item to help the symbol styler know when to show a symbol gallery and when not too. ArcGIS Pro 3.0 started writing this out and we use these same flags when searching for compatible webstyles for the geometry being styled.

So your style has these typeKeywords

typeKeywords: ["ArcGIS Pro", "Platform", "Style", "Symbology", "Symbols", "web2d"]

It looks like your style covers points, lines and polygons so you can either republish with a 3.x version of Pro or you can use ago-assistant and from there you can view the itemdetail JSON and add under the typeKeyword section the words we use as a flag.

"lineSymbol", "pointSymbol", "polygonSymbol"

I added a version of the web style to the group and you should be able to see it now with the Add Styles.

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

MelissaBrooks — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 01:19:24 GMT

Thanks! we are looking to upgrade soon, but until then I will try out the AGOL assistant workflow and let you know how I get on.

It all makes sense too, thank you for the explanation/background, its good know it's happening for a reason and we have a way forwards

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

MelissaBrooks — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 01:38:19 GMT

I can confirm the AGOL Assistant Workflow works great, we are up and running.

To summarise for the post string. We were publishing the Web Style from ArcGIS Pro 2.9.1, this was the cause of the style not showing up under the "Add Style" tool in Map Viewer.

I've marked the "solution" above.

@RussRoberts thank you for your help with this! Much appreciated.

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

ZachBodenner — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:20:02 GMT

Hi @RussRoberts ,

I'm having a similar issue but I published from 3.5.4. I could not see the Style when I tried to add it to a map. I followed what you suggest here in the solution, adding "pointSymbol" (I only have points in the style):

"typeKeywords": [ "ArcGIS Pro", "Dictionary", "Platform", "pointSymbol", "Style", "Symbology", "Symbols", "Web Style" ],

However this still doesn't allow them to be recognized by the map viewer. I did make sure that the Style was shared toa group that was set as the 2-D style symbol group.

Is there any other reason the map viewer might not discover the symbol?

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

RussRoberts — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:25:23 GMT

This is because it is a dictionary style. We currently do not support using these for styling in Map Viewer but it is something we are looking into. To help with how we plan to support this did you create this dictionary symbol set on your or are you using one of the sets provided by esri? What are you using it for?

One of the things that will be different with dictionary vs. other web styles - when we do support this it will have to be a dictionary web style that also follows the layer and map level of sharing so we have access to the dictionary logic used for the symbols for the users that have access to the map. Is this a pattern that would work for your case?

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

ZachBodenner — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:34:08 GMT

Oh I guess I didn't realize dictionary styles weren't supported on the web! That's actually a bit of a bummer given how cool they seem to be (this is my first crack at one). Basically, I built it using this walkthrough, downloading an existing functioning dictionary style and then deleting existing symbols and replacing them with my own. I confirmed it does in fact work in Pro the way I wanted it to.

If I read correctly, then yes the workflow would absolutely support that sharing specification. We would be able to share the style to the same group that the map and web service are shared with.

You can read over my use-case in this Idea I posted a couple of days ago which was marked as 'Already Offered' by @TanuHoque . I guess since I posted it in ArcPro Ideas then that is in fact correct.

Since you mention that you are looking into supporting dictionary symbols on the web (which would make sense, it seems to me that there are important use-cases that would benefit from having web access), do you know approximately when we might see that implemented? I'm working in Enterprise 11.5 and we keep relatively up to date (usually upgrade every-other long-term release).

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

TanuHoque — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 20:37:39 GMT

@ZachBodenner

because you are on enterprise, one option you can consider is to publish it as a map service and then consume that on the MV as a map image layer.

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

ZachBodenner — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 20:51:14 GMT

Hmm, that's an interesting idea, though it leaves my end users unable to edit the dataset on the web (we would need the feature service for that). I suppose I could always to the 'invisible-feature-service-on-top-of-a-map-service' trick, but are dictionary renderers and feature services fundamentally incompatible? Or is that something that may also be on the horizon?

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

KerryRobinson — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 04:49:59 GMT

Hey Zach,

I just want to clarify a few things. Dictionary Renderer is actually supported in web applications and in the Maps SDK for JavaScript. What isn't supported is the ability to style a layer in Map Viewer using the dictionary renderer. So, as long as you use Pro to configure your layer with the dictionary renderer (pointing to your dictionary web style) and publish it to Portal as a web layer, you will be able to edit and view the data correctly in web apps.

The main thing to remember regarding the Map Viewer is that clicking on the Styles tab will reset the renderer - temporarily - until you hit the 'Done' button, which will overwrite the dictionary renderer settings. So be careful, and save backups just in case.

Just to prove the point, I created a few things you can check out:

A simple feature layer configured with a custom dictionary web style in Pro (and I used MapViewer to configure feature templates and forms on the layer, which are especially super handy for editing features with dictionary symbology)
A web map containing this layer
A Nearby Instant App using this web map, to show it being used in a simple web app
A simple editing app built with Experience Builder

Try it for yourself, and let me know if you have any questions. I am definitely interested in learning more about your use case and your style. Also, if you haven't seen it already, check out @megan_r's blog Seven handy tips for getting started creating a custom dictionary style.

Good luck and keep on mappin'! 🤓

Kerry

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

ZachBodenner — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 13:51:54 GMT

Hi Kerry,

I appreciate the response and clarification. I haven't tried your resources yet but I can tell you for sure that my Feature Service did not honor the dictionary renderer. I got a default point symbol. The Map Service did though, which explains my response to Tanu above.

My workflow was to create the dictionary renderer and confirm that it works in Pro (3.5.4), as well as to edit to make sure the changes got applied correctly. All good there. Then I published that service to our 11.5 Enterprise Portal, and got those results. Do you know of any reason why that would be given that you're saying they are supported? I was only trying to upload the style as a web style as a fallback to that original workflow.

Edit for more info: I should also mention these are referenced feature services, not Hosted if that makes a different.

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

KerryRobinson — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 03:09:34 GMT

Hi Zach,

Hmm, I believe this should work for feature layers with referenced feature services. A few things to double check.

Make sure your layer is referencing the web style, and that sharing/permissions are set to the portal items accordingly. Also, do not check "Use symbol types compatible with all clients".

Publish your dictionary style to your portal (which will create both desktop and web style portal items)
Add that web style in Pro to the Dictionary Renderer (in the Pro symbology tab for Dictionary Renderer, go to "More", "Add Dictionary", browse to the new web style portal item)
Configure your mapped fields and configuration properties again
Share your feature layer as a web layer. Make sure to not check the "Use symbol types compatible with all clients" option, if available:

Also note that the dictionary renderer is configured with the web layer you published, not with the feature service, so you must add the feature layer portal item that you published above to your web map/app in order for it to work.

Hope that helps!

Kerry

Re: Help needed : Custom Web Styles not showing under "added styles" in Map Viewer

ZachBodenner — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:26:57 GMT

Ok so I Marked this as a solution as well even though we've kind of got two different topics running on this thread (sorry @MelissaBrooks !). The key was here was that in my Pro document I was referencing a dictionary renderer style stored on our local network, NOT the one I had published to the web. Completing step 2 in this post was the kicker. To summarize:

What does not work: A feature layer (or service) in Enterprise 11.5 published from Pro 3.5.4 will not honor the dictionary style if the Pro document is using a locally stored style, nor can it locate and utilize a published web style after publication of the feature/map service.

What does work: Construct the dictionary style, publish that style, then use the published web style in the Pro document as the symbol renderer, then publish to Enterprise.

Thanks for the help everyone!