Why Isn't Story Map Builder Showing Changes to Maps After Saving?

[JoshuaFlickinger]

Background
I'm working on a story map where I've been setting up several sidecar sections in the story map builder.  I have web maps set up as my main content, and I notice in the legend that I haven't renamed my layers, so that my legend is not giving user friendly labels for my features.  OK, so the solution is to go back to my web map, change the layer names, and save the map.

The Problem
The issue I'm having is that, after saving the map and reopening the story map builder, I'm not seeing my saved changes in the legend.  The builder is remembering the state of my web map - specifically the legend - as it was before I saved the map.   I can work around the issue by creating a whole new sidecar slide; when I add the map to the new sidecar slide it comes in with the correct legend.  But obviously this workaround is less than ideal because it requires that I replicate the work that I've already done.

Is this an expected behavior or a bug?

[OwenGeo · Accepted solution]

@JoshuaFlickinger -- The current behavior is that the layer names do not reflect changes in the web map after you add the map to a story. We took this conservative approach to prevent unwanted changes to a web map from affecting your story, but I realize that in your situation you'd prefer the opposite behavior. We have discussed providing an option to force a refresh of the layer names in the future.

However, you can simply edit layer names in the story builder. Just click the layer name in the map designer layer list and update it as you wish. If you're using the map in multiple locations you may have to update the names in several places, but you should be able to get things how you want by manually editing them in the story builder.

 

[lzk222]

Thanks, this is good to know @OwenGeo. Is it possible to add more characters? Right now it appears there's a character constraint of about about 35. It's odd to me that this would be in place because the sidecar file legends can handle legend names that are much greater in length (100+). Overall, it would be much better if this could be designed to either be more responsive to web map changes or have the refresh button as you mentioned.

[OwenGeo]

@lzk222 - We can take a look at increasing the character limit for layer names. Those other enhancements are still on our radar, although they are not prioritized at the moment.

It would be great if you could add these to the Ideas board so others can vote for them and add their support.