Allow ability to toggle Search Layers function in Layer List in MapViewer to increase performance
The Search Layers function has been a recent addition to MapViewer (maybe early 2026?). It is useful for quickly finding a layer, however we believe it also has very negative performance issues, if a large number of layers are used on a webmap. We believe this has impacted the performance of 100s of projects we have setup.
The search layer function was made available in the 'Map Layers Widget' in Experience Builder prior to this, and had a similar affect on performance, however in experience builder we were able to turn this off with a toggle (see below). This then immediately improved performance when this feature was turned off in Experience builder or when viewing the App. I suspect that when this feature is include it is constantly scanning the list of layers. If the list is large then it will have performance issues. The possibilities here would be to either create a toggle that turns this feature off, and stops performing this scans of the layer list, OR a lighter search list that does not need to scan the layer list, until search is clicked.
Prior to this feature being added we were able to create maps with large numbers of layers added with not to much issue. Since the change these cause major slowness when the layer list is opened in MapViewer. If the layer list is closed then it speeds up again. Likewise performance of the webmap is fine when viewed through our Experience Builder App. The problem here is that the Layer List in MapViewer is needed as it is a critical feature when a GIS Consltant is building or updating a webmap.
I understand that the aim is to reduce the number of layers in MapViewer however working for an AEC company at the planning stage of a large development it is inevitable that there are many layers required to compare on the same map. At the same time I don't think we are unique in this respect, many other large AEC companies working in the planning industry experiencing similar issues, so I think this is a critical add on.
