Limitations with Map Image Layers
Hello,
Many of our web services are published as map image layers since they are intended to be view-only for web maps we create and to lessen required server resources. For reference, we are on AGE 11.1 with a federated AGS server. One issue we're struggling with is that you can't ungroup a layer when it's added to a map as a map image layer. Here's an example for a simple web service with 1 layer. The Group option is only available for the "upper" layer, not the sublayer. This means that, in a web map, you can't combine a number of layers from different web services without a lot of redundant, unnecessary grouping in both the layer list and legend. Likewise, you can't just pull out the sublayer to display on it's own in the web map.
We use a couple of workarounds for this issue but aren't happy with them either:
One is to add the REST endpoint to the map instead. The issue with this approach is that if a user clicks on the item details in a web map to learn more about the layer, they land on the REST endpoint, which can be confusing for non-GIS users.
A second is to create a new feature layer on our Portal which points to the REST endpoint. Then, add this feature layer to the web map. The downside to this that you can end up with a lot of duplicate content on the Portal. For the example above, I would have both a map image layer of construction zones and a feature layer of construction zones - twice the item metadata to maintain and also confusing for those developing maps (which one to use).
Is this limitation with using map image layers something Esri might change in future versions of AGE? Is there any other workaround that I'm missing?
Thanks for any input!
