making edits to a theme, navigation, and URL

[CrystalVanKooten]

I would like to make the following changes to my StoryMap, and wondered if you might advise if these are possible:

-I am using the Bulletin pre-made theme, but would like to make small changes to some aspects (how links appear is the biggest change I'd like to make). I see that I can make my own theme with the theme builder starting with the basic 6 themes. Can I do this starting with Bulletin (which isn't one of the six)? Or what is another way to make small changes to the theme? 

-I would like to have drop down menus in my navigation bar that correspond to sub-sections in my story. I have found html and css code online (https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/77d0c54449264fb0bdbaad375dde5444) that would allow me to do this, but I don't see a place to use this code in Story Maps. Can I make a drop down menu another way, and if so, how? 

-Is it possible to customize my story's URL so it's not a bunch of random letters and numbers? 

Thank you! 

Crystal

[AbbyE_Esri · Accepted solution]

Hi @CrystalVanKooten ,

To make some styling changes to the Bulletin featured theme, you should be able to do the following:

1. Head to the list of featured themes in the Design panel and favorite the Bulletin theme. 

2. Go to your Themes page, and the My Favorites tab should show the Bulletin theme. Click the ... Quick actions menu for the Bulletin theme and choose Duplicate.

This way, you'll be able to start with a copy of the Bulletin theme and make any theme customizations you wish.

In terms of the dropdown headers, this isn't something currently possible with our navigation settings, or with HTML customization. If you created these in another app, you could embed that app within the story, but the embedded content would not take up the entire page. You could also create headers within a collection that uses the tabbed navigation, so you'd then see nested headers: 

If you'd like customization past this, I would recommend posting the request for the enhancement on the ArcGIS StoryMaps Ideas page.

Lastly, the ability to customize the end of the URL is not an option built into our story builder, but there are a few ways you can customize or shorten that URL using other third party tools or embedding - ArcGIS StoryMaps Blog - Customizing your StoryMap’s URL 

Let me know of any follow up questions you have on this information! 

--Abby