topic Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues in ArcGIS StoryMaps Questions

ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Amanda__Huber — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 17:14:33 GMT

Hey Story Maps Team,

As always, you all are doing such a great job building out this brand new template. While working with the new template after the UC release I found some things that could be fixed and could make the new template even more powerful. In addition I recently came across this GeoNet post by Stephanie Smith‌ which covers many of the requests that I also was going to add. I thought I would add these requests here as well.

I would love to see the following:
Increase the amount of user customization for font type, size, justification, spacing, colors, etc. in every block option and not just in the major theme settings.
Ability for users to change dimensions of embedded content, if they choose, instead of being locked only to the app presets (maybe a css override option).
Allow for images to "gallery" next to each other like in the cascade layout instead of only allowing stacking.
Allow for adding content to sidecar like images and videos via a url instead of only uploading from a computer.
Add the ability to embed a webpage into the sidecar.
Ability to add small text for credits or notes in the side car. Right now there is not a clean way to give photo, video, or map credit.
Increase map setting options beyond only allowing or not allowing a legend. It would be nice to be able to choose legend placement, if you wanted a home button or other basic map options. It would also be nice to have a pop-up option that does not convert the pop-up to a table layout.
Add the option to have cards that are right image/left text card instead of only a left image option.
Add a credits section or WYSIWYG html block to customize your own.

Here are some additional functionality requests/ things I've noticed while working with the new Story Map template:

Requests: (in addition to the above)

Add in a stock photo resource in the interface (like Cascade's Unsplash) (Pixabay is also one of my favorite resources which would be awesome to have)
The ability to move around content sections without having to re-write or delete content.
Ability to control paragraph spacing (less space between text lines).
Option to center text block in story.

Issues:

The Undo CTRL-Z functionality doesn’t always work.
When using Bullet points, sometimes the formatting is wonky and glitches/ doesn't behave as most text editors do. In addition I would like to see the ability to mix bullet points and numbers or even sub bullets for a more structured option (visual organization in bullet form with hierarchy).
When Copy and pasting, sometimes it doesn't work.

Thanks for all your hard work!
Best,
Amanda

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

OwenGeo — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 02:27:19 GMT

Thanks for these great and thoughtful lists, Amanda! We're working on adding/addressing many of these items already, and we'll make sure to add your other suggestions to our feedback list.

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Amanda__Huber — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 14:08:36 GMT

Sounds great, thanks so much Owen!

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

LeifJohnson3 — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 13:38:21 GMT

Thanks Amanda for the post and Owen and the rest of the story maps team for getting on it so quickly. The new version of story maps just seems to be lacking in the customization arena, which is what I loved about the original so much. For that reason, I'm waiting for the new version to get up to speed a bit before I switch over to it. I agree with all of the suggestions being proposed and would just like to point out the ones that would be most useful to me:

The ability to duplicate sidecar slides. I've seen this in other posts, but just wanted to reiterate it. It was a very helpful feature for me to use instead of a time slider which can be a little awkward to use in a story map at times. Being able to duplicate a slide and then toggle layers on and off really helps to make that a smoother process and still show the before and after views.
The ability to see an overview of the content you have added so far and be able to rearrange the content like Amanda proposed would be really helpful. If there was a way to see an even more zoomed out overview of the content, kind of like if you were to zoom out to 50 or 60% in a word doc and be able to see multiple pages at a time that might be helpful. I like being able to do this because it gives me a better idea of the overall flow of whatever I'm working on.
Adding different options for how a sidecar moves over content would be nice too.
I especially liked the ability to align text and titles in the original as well.

I'm sure you guys have your hand's full with all of this right now, but the new addition looks great, you guys should be really proud, and I'm excited to see where you take it.

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Amanda__Huber — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 19:27:27 GMT

As I continue to work with my current story map I have a few more requests/issues that I thought I would add:

Request:

Float image with right alignment (not just left always).
Have the ability to add a small photo below the float image text.
Drop caps in paragraphs.
The ability to have embedded content span the page (similar to the current photo settings)
The ability to edit an Embed URL versus fully delete it.

Issues:

When uploading a portrait oriented photo the application automatically rotates it to landscape regardless of default orientation.
When selecting text, the selection always seems a bit finicky and you need to stop your mouse directly over the last letter otherwise it de-selects the text.

As always, thanks so much for all you do!

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

OwenGeo — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 20:37:30 GMT

The ability to have embedded content span the page (similar to the current photo settings)

You can do this one already by hovering over the embed and choosing a size from the toolbar. 🙂

Have the ability to add a small photo below the float image text.

Can you provide a little more information about this one? What would you use this for? Can you share a quick sketch of what this would look like or where the small photo would go?

When uploading a portrait oriented photo the application automatically rotates it to landscape regardless of default orientation.

Can you share the image you are using? I'm not able to see this using the portrait images I'm testing.

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Amanda__Huber — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 15:40:37 GMT

Hi Owen,

Thanks for the speedy reply!

The ability to have embedded content span the page (similar to the current photo settings)
You can do this one already by hovering over the embed and choosing a size from the toolbar. 🙂

Am I missing something? I only see two options for embedding as a card or as an interactive embed (see image below). I was hoping for an menu similar to images where there are options for float, small, 1200px, and 2000px.

Have the ability to add a small photo below the float image text.
Can you provide a little more information about this one? What would you use this for? Can you share a quick sketch of what this would look like or where the small photo would go?

Absolutely, here's what I was thinking

When uploading a portrait oriented photo the application automatically rotates it to landscape regardless of default orientation.
Can you share the image you are using? I'm not able to see this using the portrait images I'm testing.

Here's a link to the raw image: https://trpd.maps.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/d13ecad290d34503a3d935e42cf4b2aa/data

I've noticed this behavior with most portrait images, not just this one. Here's what it looks like in the story map on my end vs what it should look like:

Thanks again!

-Amanda

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Amanda__Huber — Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:15:12 GMT

I figure I'll just keep contributing to this thread.

I recently noticed when uploading a video 49.7 MB video file I receive the error "Images must be smaller than 20 MB" but when uploading a 36.2 MB video file I receive no errors (still larger than the 20MB error message) and the video is added successfully. This is a head scratcher.

A few suggestions would be:

Improve the error message to the correct size limit and change the error message from 'image' to 'video'
Increase the file upload size for videos (since most videos can be fairly large) or allow hot-linking from a third-party video hosting website.

Thanks!

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Anonymous User — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 20:30:04 GMT

Is the ability to click images to enlarge in the works as well?

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Anonymous User — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 17:14:16 GMT

Be able to switch panel placement for individual slides within the same sidecar.

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

OwenGeo — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 19:37:07 GMT

Thanks for your feedback, Bryan!

> Is the ability to click images to enlarge in the works as well?

We don't have specific plans for that. Is there a reason you wouldn't just use a large size for the image if you wanted readers to see it in a large size?

> Be able to switch panel placement for individual slides within the same sidecar.

Hmmm, I don't think we'd do this since the basic experience of a sidecar is that text for each slide scrolls into the same space. If you want something like that you can simply put several sidecars in sequence and alternate panel placements between them.

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

OwenGeo — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 19:38:05 GMT

Thanks Amanda -- we're looking into this.

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

AravindStoryMaps — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 20:54:39 GMT

Hi Amanda,

Thank you for the feedback! We've corrected the message to indicate that they are "videos" and the minimum file size for videos in .mp4 format are 50MB.

Thanks,

Aravind

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Amanda__Huber — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 21:02:10 GMT

You're the best! Thanks so much for making that fix

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Anonymous User — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 12:34:59 GMT

I mean enlarging images like you can in Journal. You can put an image in the text area of Journal and there is an option to have the image enlarge when the user selects it.

When the user clicks the image it enlarges.

This is super helpful when adding images in the text area such as tables or figures.

However in StoryMaps, when using sidecar for instance, I can put an image in but as far as I can tell there isn't an option to allow the user to enlarge the image when selecting.

Each image is a different size also but show up the same size in StoryMaps. The first image is 2560 x 1759 and the second image is 1110 x 673.

As for the being able to switch panel placement for individual slides within the same sidecar, disregard, wasn't thinking things through.

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Amanda__Huber — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 14:10:49 GMT

I agree that this would be a very beneficial functionality to have ^

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

OwenGeo — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 14:52:38 GMT

Ah, got it. Makes sense. We'll consider this for a future release.

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Anonymous User — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 15:33:22 GMT

Cool, thanks Owen!

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

Anonymous User — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 17:40:59 GMT

More legend options would be helpful. I received a comment from one of my co-workers in regard to the legend being displayed by default (similar to Journal).

Have a way to be able to “pin” the map legend open so it’s possible to do a screen grab of the map with its legend. I was able to effectively do this using a screen grab with a time-delay, but that’s probably more than we want to ask of all users.

Re: ArcGIS Story Map Requests and Issues

JasonSmolinski — Sat, 16 May 2020 17:50:27 GMT

Hello. I use StoryMaps with my students daily. After being used to the Expand button in the Story Map Series and in the Map Journal, I agree this feature would be a welcome return!