Story Map Date Function

[ThomasSmutny]

Hello! Does somebody know a possibility to control a story map with a date function? I want to integrate the Story Map in my personal website and want to visualize a stop on a route exactly on a specific day e.g. 1st September. When the user opens the webpage next day (2nd September) then another stop will be visualiszed. Thx in advance

[AdrianWelsh]

Hi Thomas,

This sounds a bit complicated. Can you explain more, in detail, on what you are wanting to accomplish?

[ThomasSmutny]

Hi!

This summer we make a fieltrip to China with university and I want to creat a Story Map about our route.

Every Stop of our journey should be inlcuded in this Story Map and I want give every stop a date (e.g. 1st Sept = Arrival in Beijing, 2nd Sept Visiting University xy ), that every day one of these created stops would be zoomed automatically in the map...ist that possible?!

I also want embed my story map in my Website, that is no problem, because I tested that with an existing Story Map already.

Hope you understand what I mean.

Thx in advance!

Best wishes from Vienna!
Thomas

[AdrianWelsh]

Howdy Thomas,

I think there is an easy way to do what you are asking without any custom programming. It you were to create a Map Tour story map, then you can use one of the 'title' like attributes as your date. Plus, it will pan to each spot as long as the zoom is set in far enough.

Take a look at this example from the Nature Conservancy

Colorado: 50th Anniversary Timeline Map | The Nature Conservancy

It is embedded into their site. Zoom in fairly close to one of the points. Then click any of the other points in the tour list below. It will pan to each point.

[ThomasSmutny]

Yes I know what you mean in the example, but  I also want it automatically every day that the integrated stop with the specific date will be zoomed the whole day when someone opens the website where the story map is integrated....do you know what I mean?

Every user can zoom and click to different stops if they want, but I want with every website opening that the stations from each day is automatically zoomed in

Best wishes

Thomas

[AdrianWelsh]

Thomas,

That is a much finer request. This would require some JavaScript programming and a custom web mapping application. I do not have the skill set to create something like that. It would take some time to build. Sorry this isn't more help.

[ThomasSmutny]

Ok...puh...I think I also do not have the skills to do that....maybe possible with some Bookmarks in the Story Map with the different dates and when I click on a bookmark it zoomed automatically to the stop...is that possible with a typ of Story Map?

Best wishes
Thomas

[AdrianWelsh]

Yeah, you can definitely put in bookmarks (different story maps have different functionalities so you might have to toy around with some before you get the right one).

I am tagging Owen Evans​ on this since he is the story map master and might have further ideas.

[ThomasSmutny]

super great!

Thank you.

[OwenGeo]

Hi Thomas,

I think this sounds like a good case for the "geoblog" feature of Story Map Journal.

If you click the Organize button at the bottom of the side panel you'll see an option to Show entries in reverse order. This will place your most recent entry at the beginning of the journal so that it's the first one that readers see when they open your story. You also have the option to set a publication date if you add sections to your journal ahead of when you want them to appear. When the publication date/time is reached that section will become visible to your readers.

In your case you could make one web map where you keep adding the new locations for your journey, and each day you'd create a new section in your map journal. For each section add the web map and set its location using a Custom configuration.

Another idea would be to use the Story Map Tour app and add a location to the tour for each day. Then you could keep updating the link to the app where it is embedded on your website to point to the latest section using the tip described in this blog post.

Map Tour would let you do a single photo and a small amount of description for each tour point whereas map journal would let you add several photos and a lot more text in the side panel.

Hope this is helpful!
Owen