Inconsistent behaviour between ArcGIS Online Apps.

[DarylBlanchett1]

Is anything being done to address the lack of consistency between the various app builders that are available on ArcGIS Online?  Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting frustrated by the different behaviours and capabilities in each of the solutions that are available in the platform. 

A simple example is the behaviour of the Search widget that is in the AppBuilder (which allows you to search map layers), and the one that is in the OpsDashboard (which does not allow you to search map layers).  This makes it difficult to decide on which platform I should be using because I have to weigh a projects requirements against both the capabilities of the platform, and the individual widgets within the platform.  I can't use an OpsDashboard for a project if the user needs the Search widget to include map layers, even though the OpsDashboard would be the preferred solution otherwise. 

I've only been using ArcGIS Online for a few months, so it might be a case of me not grokking the way the various app builders and widgets work.  

Cheers

[RickeyFight]

Daryl Blanchett‌

Web AppBuilder has a dashboard theme. You can customize the search widget within it. 

[DarylBlanchett1]

I'm looking into that as an option, but it's also another example of the root issue.  The charting capabilities, behaviours, and interface in the Web AppBuilder are very different from those that are found in the OpsDashboard.  I don't understand why there is such a disparity between the implementations of similar functionality in the two apps. 

[RickeyFight]

Daryl Blanchett‌

From what I remember, the opsdashboard was developed before WAB.   

When WAB came out there was no ops theme. It was added on later versions. That is why there are differences. 

Code becomes old and out of date and esri is always creating new ways to do things. 

[DerekLaw]

Hi Daryl,

> Is anything being done to address the lack of consistency between the various app builders that are available on ArcGIS Online?  Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting frustrated by the different behaviours and capabilities in each of the solutions that are available in the platform.

I'm sorry to hear about your frustrations with the different configurable apps. As Rickey's post indicated, the various configurable apps have evolved over time and sometimes there is functional overlap between the different app solution options.

ArcGIS Dashboards is the premier go to option to create and deploy a dashboard.

Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS can be thought of as the "swiss army knife" solution, which enables you to deploy many different web apps to meet many different use cases. They have a "dashboard theme" - because users wanted a theme option where all widgets dialogs were "open" when the app loaded.

> This makes it difficult to decide on which platform I should be using ...

FYI, there's an esri Canada webinar coming up in a week on April 30th that you might find beneficial,

The Fantastic Four Apps: Which Builder is Best?

Hope this helps,