Latest Contributions by OwenGeo

Hi Martha, There was a recent blog post about the URL parameters supported by ArcGIS Online configurable apps. However, if you are just using another app to provide layer toggling, I'd strongly recommend that you consider adding the web map to your Map Journal and using Main Stage Actions to manipulate the map for your readers. Main Stage Actions don't require any additional user interface controls (like a layer list, basemap selector, etc.) that might clutter your journal or confuse your readers. They allow you to integrate the control of the map into the words of your story. Just highlight some text and click the Change Main Stage Content button to configure an action. Actions can turn layers on/off, zoom to a location, or make a specific feature's pop-up appear. You can even switch to a different web map or change the main stage from one type of content to another (map to image, video to map, image to web page, etc.). Actions can help you use a single web map to tell many different parts of your story. Hope this is helpful! Owen ... View more

Hi Judie, That's great to hear that you are making your way through all the Story Map apps! The Map Tour app is different from the Journal and Series apps in that you can easily create your map inside the Map Tour app by adding your photos/points whereas Map Series and Map Journal are apps that allow you to bring in web maps from ArcGIS Online. These maps can be yours or they can be from Esri's Living Atlas or any other public web map that you find share by the community. So for these apps you would create and save your map on arcgis.com and then bring it into Series or Journal. The best way to add data to your web map depends on a few things like how often you want to do updates and what data you have available. If you drag a second CSV onto the map it will create a second layer, but you can simply delete the original layer if you want the update to replace the original one. I'm not sure if you've found these already, but all of the Story Map apps have tutorials on the Story Maps website. Here's the tutorial for Map Journal. You can get to the others by clicking on Apps, then Learn More next to any one of the app listings, then the Tutorial tab. Owen ... View more

Hi Judie, First, I just wanted to make sure that you realized that there are several symbol sets available on ArcGIS Online. I've noticed that sometimes people don't realize you can select a category of symbols (see the first few screenshots below). There are also several great open-use symbols sets on the web. One of my favorites is Map Icons by Nicolas Mollet. These symbols are under a Creative Commons license, so make sure to credit your use of them. To use them: Download the symbols you want Post them publicly on the web somewhere such as on your web server or other web storage like Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc. (note: hot linking directly from the Map Icons website is not allowed) Go to the symbol settings for your layer and click the link to Use an Image (see last screenshot) Paste in the URL of your symbol Owen ... View more