FeedSimple: Live XML and GeoRSS Feed Integration with Spatial Join and Dynamic Feature Layer

adamsimple — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 05:31:51 GMT

FeedSimple: XML/GeoRSS Feed Widget

The idea for this came to me Thursday evening at the 2026 Esri Dev/Tech Summit and this is what I have. I am in the process of developing a configuration guide. This widget has gone through a ton of changes in a few days, so that's made lots of my screen shots outdated. I should have that put together shortly. You can find the widget and documentation on my GitHub site (at the bottom). I was going to post the zip file, but this is widget rapidly changing and GitHub is the place to get the latest.

Built a custom ExB widget that consumes live XML-based feeds and displays them as interactive cards alongside a web map. Compatible with RSS, Atom, GeoRSS, and custom XML schemas.

King County Road Closures (spatial join mode) https://feed-test.mapsimple.org
USGS Earthquakes - Past 24 Hours (auto-generated map layer) https://feed-quakes.mapsimple.org

Core

Universal XML parser: RSS, Atom, GeoRSS, custom XML with recursive nested field flattening, namespace stripping, attribute extraction, array handling
Configurable polling with Page Visibility API (pause when hidden, instant resume)
Non-blocking error handling: stale data stays visible on fetch failure
CORS proxy support via esriRequest with automatic portal token auth
Independent versioning and config migration system

Card Rendering

Markdown card templates with {{token}} substitution
Chainable pipe filters: date formatting (24h, timezone offset), math (/, *, +, -), round, abs, prefix, suffix, upper, lower, autolink, externalLink
Mobile card template (separate simplified template at 600px and below)
Status color coding: exact match mode (per-value colors) and range mode (numeric class breaks with labels)
Color legend: collapsible bar above cards, admin-togglable, shows swatches and labels
Card action toolbar: zoom, pan, expand, external link buttons with configurable position (bottom/right/kebab menu) and separate mobile position
Hover tooltips from any field
Expand button showing raw field:value pairs
Source attribution footer with optional link
Highlight animation on new/changed items after refresh

Search, Sort and Pagination

Real-time client-side text search with 200ms debounce and configurable search fields
Runtime sort controls with field dropdown and direction toggle
Reverse feed order option
Range label search and sort (virtual fields from color breaks)
Expand-style pagination with Show More / Show All and {n} remaining count token
Configurable item labels (singular/plural) for count display

Feed Map Layer

Auto-generated client-side FeatureLayer from feed coordinates: no feature service needed
ClassBreaksRenderer for range-based map symbology (independent map colors, sizes, marker styles per range)
Dynamic popup title with {{token}} substitution
Bidirectional card and map sync
GeoRSS georss:point auto-splitting
Efficient poll-cycle sync via applyEdits()
FeatureEffect dimming on joined layers during search/filter

Spatial Join (Feature Service Integration)

Join feed items to existing feature service by shared key
Batch WHERE IN queries with numeric/string detection
Card click: zoom/pan to matched feature + popup
Configurable zoom level (points) and zoom buffer (lines/polygons)

Mobile and Responsive

Mobile popup behavior: collapsed, dock position, hide dock button, hide action bar
Mobile card template and mobile toolbar position overrides
iOS auto-zoom prevention

Developer

Debug logger with tagged channels (FETCH, PARSE, RENDER, POLL, JOIN, TEMPLATE, SETTINGS, FEED-LAYER)
137 unit tests across 4 test files

GitHub: https://github.com/MapSimple-Org/ExB-Simple-Public
Docs: https://mapsimple.org/samples/

ExB Developer Edition 1.19.0+.

Re: FeedSimple: Live XML and GeoRSS Feed Integration with Spatial Join and Dynamic Feature Layer

adamsimple — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:50:21 GMT

I am working on an updated release for ExB 1.20. I expect that to be done early next week if not later this weekend. I may be sneaking in a few enhancements as well 😉.

topic FeedSimple: Live XML and GeoRSS Feed Integration with Spatial Join and Dynamic Feature Layer in Experience Builder Custom Widgets

FeedSimple: Live XML and GeoRSS Feed Integration with Spatial Join and Dynamic Feature Layer

Re: FeedSimple: Live XML and GeoRSS Feed Integration with Spatial Join and Dynamic Feature Layer