Gallery card Hub lacks item-support (after changes 23th april 2019)

[ChristaKemperman1]

Hi,

I have a question concerning the recent changes in Arcgis Hub (23th april 2019). One of the changes concerns the gallery card, which now opens app under the hub-header:

• Gallery card now links maps underneath the site's header

Although this change is not what I prefer, it changes the whole purpose of having designed a storymap including colour scheme and layout, when you simply put a completely different header on top of it without a clear boundary between the hubpage and the app, I can probably live with it. 

The one thing that I really think should be solved is that only apps which are shown correctly are straight forward apps and dashboards. In my organisation's hub I use "items" to create diverse options for sharing with my users, in a way that f.e. everybody can see the apps we create but in case access is limited one needs to login when the apps is actually opened.

The item I add in my arcgis online content will be an application, which refers to the app (or in some cases a different viewer) I want to show. The item is shared globally, the app it refers to with the only the neccesary group. The item was then added to the gallery card in Hub. That worked perfectly before, but now I get some sort of metadata-page after opening my item, without any acces to my url (like the page below).

This is very troublesome for us, because we are kind of fond of the items-option. Could you please fix this a.s.a.p?

Please check our hub for more detail: https://geo-point.provincie-utrecht.nl/ . If you open this page: https://geo-point.provincie-utrecht.nl/pages/bestuurlijke-zaken you'll find a Webkaart-button in the gallery which will show the problem. It occurs all over our site but I have find a workaround for the main pages, so people can again work with it. 

thanks,

Christa

[BrianRollison]

Hi Christa Kemperman‌ -- thanks for reaching out!

If your site has the "App Page" capability turned on (Site Editor > Settings > Capabilities > App Page), then the gallery card will open any supported apps in the context of the site's header; however, if the app isn't supported by an app page, then it should open the app directly.

The app page capability provides multiple benefits for viewers of your content, but two primary ones are:

1. Non-Sighted Visitors -- one of the most jarring transitions for these types of viewers is opening an app in a new tab without any sort of contextual navigation in place; the app page capability provides this regardless if you set the app to open in the same tab or a new tab.
2. Sighted Visitors -- they enjoy similar benefits to non-sighted visitors with the exception of being able to clearly associate the site's branding in the header with the app, raising the authoritative trust of the app and ensuring more consistent branding experiences for customers

At any time you can turn off the app page capability.  Keep in mind if the URL you are pointing to in your Application is HTTP when your site is HTTPS, then the Application will be blocked from loading sending you to an `/items` route.

I noticed this might be the culprit with the "Interbestuurlijk Toezicht (IBT)" app on the gallery on Geo-Point Utrecht, the item seems to be an HTTP URL (http://utrecht.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=ff32bbd4045e4930b028a3bf145e9a38 ).

I see what you mean about the "Webkaart" app, very odd -- we are looking into a fix right now.  Thanks for raising it to our attention!

Brian

[ChristaKemperman1]

Thanks Brian for your quick response. And for highlighting the benefits of the new feature. 

I'll check on the http vs https once again :-). 

Apart from the "webkaart"-app problem I noticed that Dashboard act differently from apps with the "App Page" turned on. Dashboards open in a different tab, apps in the hub-page. Is this on purpose?

regards,

Christa

[BrianRollison]

Anytime Christa Kemperman‌ 🙂

So the simple answer here is dashboards don't behave the way apps do on the platform which makes the open behavior slightly different.  Long story short:

• Applications have URLs associated with them which we use to reference the app and display under the header 
• Other item types don't automatically have a URL associated with them, so we have to construct them 

You'll find dashboards aren't the only type of content that falls into the second bucket.  We understand it is rather unclear which types of content are apps and which aren't -- they all look like apps at the end of the day.  We are working to streamline this experience going forward.

As an aside, you can now set your Gallery Cards to open content in the same tab or a new tab.  If you have the "App Page" capability turned on and a single Gallery Card showcases both apps and dashboards, then both should open in either the same tab or a new tab depending on your card's configuration.  The difference will be whether the content is displayed in the context of the site's header.

Brian

[BrianRollison]

An update here, we have returned how the Gallery Card opens content to its behavior previous to 4/23.  This means for the time being it will not use the App Page capability to open supported apps in the context of the site's header.

We plan to reenable that functionality in the near future but discovered a few odd behaviors investigating the original question posted above.  You can continue to configure your Gallery Card to open content in the same tab or a new tab -- keep in mind it is a best practice to open content in the same tab for non-sighted visitors and mobile visitors.

Stay tuned for updates on this in the next few weeks!

[ChristaKemperman1]

thanks Brian. I'll keep an eye on the updates.

regards,

Christa