Idea:
The Bookmark widget is great for allowing different themes to be viewed on one source map. However, I would like to allow the user to choose their extent and view different themes within that extent, rather than the map zooming to the pre-set bookmark extent every time.
Workflow context:
Dataset: species data containing 7 themes; Natural Resource Region (NRR), Population Units (there are 5 within the NRR), Landcape Units (there are many within each Population Unit).
Workflow: I want the user to be able to...
Why Bookmarks vs. Layer List:
I understand that the layer list would technically allow different themes to be viewed by turning layers/groups on and off, but in conducting user testing for this app, my users find this confusing given that the layers will cover each other - ie. it is not intuitive to them that layers higher in the list cover layers lower on the list. As this app is designed to serve the public eventually, I want to make it as user-friendly as possible. Having bookmarks would be much more user-friendly if the "zoom to extent" component could be toggled off.
Other efforts to work around:
Using a List to allow the user to zoom back to the Population Unit / Landcape Unit in question: since much of my app uses Selections to generate stats specific to a given Unit, this is not viable, because the list will unselect something that is already selected if it is clicked again.
Map Actions: I've tried setting map actions so that the maps will zoom to a certain extent, but the bookmarks override these actions
'Zoom to selection' option on Map Widget: the users do not notice or know to look for this option in user testing / I can't move it to a more noticeable place on the screen or really alter it to make it pop
My other option seems to be just making 7 different maps, which is probably what I'll do in the meantime.
I poked around and discovered that you can add a source map to Data multiple times, and then set layer visibility from there:
With that, you can use multiple views + map widgets to display themes without any dependency on extent.
However, I think that being able to do this type of workflow with bookmarks would be a lot cleaner, particularly as it would allow you to everything on one map widget and be a little less cluttered on the backend. But, I am happy that I don't have to make 7 different source maps!
Hi Tara,
You can also just create a copy of the Bookmarks Extension and comment out this line:
@Lake_Country_GIS Hello! Is this only for the Developers Edition? Unfortunately, due to the limitations of my organization, I'm not currently able to host my own deployment of ExB, so I'm hoping for an out-of-the-box solution!
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