Latest Contributions by RupertEssinger

Hi Kelly.  Shortlist doesn't support formatting place titles. We keep the place name formatting locked down so that Shortlists use consistent a consistent text style for the places listed in the tiles.  Rupert ... View more

Hi Casey That isn't supported in Shortlist, but Story Map Crowdsource would be an easy way to deploy what you asked. For example you could prepopulate your Crowdsource with places, and then let your users add additional places.  ... View more

See also: https://community.esri.com/thread/183857-is-there-a-story-map-template-that-allows-a-splash-page  ... View more

Hi Cameron Multiple images per place isn't supported currently. It is on our longer term enhancement list both for Story Map Shortlist and for Story Map Tour because a lot of you have asked for this capability. I think the level of effort to build this into the Shortlist code yourself (by downloading and self-hosting the code yourself from our Github repo would be high and I am not sure if it is possible.  One technique that might be useful in the meantime is purely graphical: make a photo collage of the pics you want to use. This has been used in several Story Map Tours to good effect, such as these two: City of Dubuque, IA Before and After Green Alleys http://dubuque.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=14ed42ce82c140c1ae5c5a32d7d3407f  SLO, CA Utility Box Art http://slocity.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=8276112a27a24dc7af0c3daa3b07c595  (see screenshot below) Timisoara, Romania: A Walk Through History:: http://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=61f838d5480e40e1b48555744beef0e0  It's a low tech approach but now that the Story Map Shortlist supports a large image for each place, it can be used in the Shortlist too (I don't have an example of this yet). A nice feature of making a collage is that your readers can see all your pics at once. Also the pics you make for your Shortlist can also look nice if you use them in a Story Map Tour. If you want to show multiple pictures for places and you don't have a huge number of places, then you could use the Story Map Journal instead. For example if you have 20 places, then you could make a Map Journal with one section for each place. That would let you show an unlimited number of photos in the side panel narrative in each of those sections.  Mary Andrews at City of SLO, CA made this Story Map Tour in which each place is shown with an image that contains several collaged pictures of that location. Note that her thumbnails are also really cool: they include a tiny picture of each artist too: ... View more

Hi Joyce The 280x210 recommended pic size from Shortlist 1.0 continues to work nicely as the thumbnail images in the tabs in the new Shortlist 2.0 beta. The new Shortlist can also display those in the Info panel that your users see when they select a place to find out more about it. but as you say, to take advantage of the new Shortlist look and feel with your existing Shortlist places, you'll want to assemble some larger images to fill that panel and look really nice. Although any size and shape is supported for the larger images, you should avoid really large images because they can load slowly when referenced via URL. A good size and shape to aim for is 1000x750 for the large images. That size and shape works nicely in Story Map Tour too for the main image, in case you might be using the same pics in that app as well. But in general pics less than 2000 pixels wide referenced via URL will draw OK, so don't feel you have to resize everything. Shortlists look best when all the images are the same size and shape, but they don't have to be. We recommend landscape orientation (i.e. images that are wider than they are tall) instead of portrait orientation. We also recommend JPG format instead of PNG format for smaller overall file size, but both formats are supported. For example in this Shortlist 2.0 for San Diego I used my existing 280x210 images for the thumbnails and 1000x750 for all the large images. That was created using the same CSV file that I used for my Shortlist 1.0 for San Diego. I added an extra field containing the URLs for the larger images. You can give that field any name. When you open a web map containing point data in ArcGIS Online and then create a Story Map Shortlist 2.0 beta from that map, the Builder gives you a wizard that lets you choose which fields to use to import the points. A lot of my pics were originally obtained from businesses and the local tourism agency at a very large file size and different shapes. I always recommend keeping those original fullsize pics around in case you decide to use them in story map apps like support full page display especially Story Map Cascade. I spent some time making smaller versions of those at 1000x750 for my Shortlists and Map Tours, including cropping them if they weren't already that 4:3 aspect ratio. You don't need to do that, but making the pics all the same shape gives you (I think) a very sleek looking Shortlist or Map Tour where the pics are consistent. I think the main issue we are seeing in Shortlist 2.0 beta story maps people are making is that they are often referencing images via URL for their thumbnails that are too large, so if there are lots of places in a tab it really slows things down.... ...which brings me to... Important Note: Everything above applies to images referenced by URL, such as images that are on your own website or web server. A nice feature of Story Map Shortlist 2.0 beta is that you also have the option to import pictures from Flickr into your Shortlist. You can use a Flickr pic for the places you add. Or you can use the Import button to bring in multiple Flickr pics, in which case the Shortlist will automatically add places into your Shortlist for each pic, the same as Story Map Tour does. Using Flickr for your pics is great because it is easy to put pics into Flickr and you don't need to worry about image sizes at all: the Story Map apps that support Flickr images automatically ask Flickr for the best image size, so you get good performance without worrying about image size or format. Shortlist and Map Tour also read in geotag info from Flickr pics, along with any name or caption text stored in Flickr. So it is our recommended workflow if you want an easy and effective way to handle pics. Just put your pics in Flickr! If you are creating a Shortlist 2.0 beta from point data in a web map, you can import the points as places and then assign pics from Flickr to those places. For example if you are migrating a Shortlist 1.0 into Shortlist 2.0 beta you can stay with referencing your pics via URL, or assign Flicker pics to your places after you have imported them into the Builder. Rupert ... View more

Hi Adam Could you perhaps clarify what you'd like to do. If you want to repeat the same place in different tabs while just defining that place once then that isn't supported in Story Map Shortlist . If you want to repeat the same places in different tabs - for example some authors have added an "All' tab to their Shortlist that contains all of the places in the other tabs combined - you have to duplicate those places in your Shortlist manually (for example, add them again or duplicate those records in your source dataset. We've held off from making the 'All' tab case easier to define because it can lead to quite a busy looking map, and the large number of places 'All' tabs contain may slow things down. Plus,its the aim of Shortlist to let you and your readers divide and conquer a large number of places via tabs for different categories. If you want to define a location such as an shopping center, and then feature a different aspect of that location in more than one tab, such as showing that in a Food tab and a Shopping tab and an Attractions tab, you can do that by defining three places and giving each one that same location: there's no concept of the same Shortlist place being shown in more than one tab with different content per tab. Hope that helps Rupert ... View more

There's not a way to link to sections from the cover page. You can define Bookmarks that appear in the header of your Cascade once people start scrolling down through your Cascade, like you see in this example: https://ncc-ccn.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=68823c9a37844c9b8e8d1981250d8599  To specify bookmarks for your Cascade, choose Settings > Bookmarks.   Bookmarks don't appear on the cover page by design, to keep that page simple and uncluttered, so people only see the bookmark navigation when they have decided to start reading your story. Rupert ... View more

Hi Terra To manually create hyperlinks for your Shortlist places In the description panel for any place, you can define a hyperlink by typing in some text, such as 'More Info', then drag over it, and then click the link button to define a hyperlink You'll then get prompted to enter the URL you want it to open.  Paste in or type in the URL then press the check mark. Save your Shortlist and thenclick view your story at the top of the Builder to view the hyperlink in action. Creating hyperlinks when creating a Shortlist using existing point data If you create a Shortlist by starting from a web map in ArcGIS Online, and you choose the option to use one or more of the point layers in the map (i.e. point shapefile, CSV based point layer, or point feature service), then in the wizard that appears, you can choose the name of a field in the point layer(s) you import that contains a URL for each place, and the Shortlist Builder will automatically generate a More Info hyperlink at the end of the description for each of your points (if that field is populated for that particular point). That saves you having to manually format hyperlinks for all the places in your Shortlist. Rupert ... View more