When importing existing web map points into a Shortlist, is there way to preserve the names of the fields alongside the attribute values in the description panel

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03-29-2017 07:17 AM
RyanFriedman
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(i.e. so under my picture of a park, it would say "RESTROOMS Yes" instead of just "Yes")

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RupertEssinger
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Hi Ryan

Thanks for this question. When you create a Story Map Shortlist using the point data in an existing web map there's not an option to automatically show the field names next to the field values that you use to populate the description panel. So you can't see the field names in the description panel, like you would see by default in the attribute list view for popups for the features in a web map. However you can get the effect you want in a Shortlist...

You could of course manually add those field names and format them by editing the description for each place in the Shortlist Builder, but you won't want to do that if you have tons of places.

A better alternative, if you are going to be using points already defined in a web map to create your Shortlist, is to add additional fields into your point data that contain the exact text strings you want, and include that field when you create your Shortlist from the web map containing that data. For example in a spreadsheet containing places I will be using in a Shortlist I may have a field called Photographer that contains the name of the photographer who took the picture for the place defined by that row in the spreadsheet. I can add an additional column into that spreadsheet to contain the text:

  "Photo by:" followed by the value of the Photographer field

which is how I want that value to appear in my Shortlist description panel. You could generate this new field's values automatically using an Excel Concatenate function so you don't need to manually populate the values, and the values will automatically reflect updates you make to the Photographer field. If defining your data in a feature service or shapefile instead of a spreadsheet you could use a field expression to generate the extra field. You can then use that new field in your Shortlist.

In this way you can get the same effect that you asked about but it is more flexible because you aren't limited to just use the name of the field in your layer, which is good especially as GIS field names can be fairly cryptic and abbreviated such that they wouldn't look good in your description panel. This method also lets you control the formatting too because you could also add HTML tags into the text values of the new field to apply formatting like bold and italic.

Hope that helps

Rupert

PS. I hope you have you checked out the 'As is' workflow we added to Shortlist in our March 1st 2017 update for when you create a Shortlist from a web map . This lets you live link your Shortlist to your web map so that updates you make to the data in your web map are automatically reflected in your Shortlist. It is a good option if you are making a data-driven Shortlist and you are happier updating your place data in your GIS than manually in the Shortlist Builder.  This way you can update the point data in your map (either by editing it or completely replacing it with a new layer) and see those changes immediately in your published Shortlist. So it is great for GIS folks who like to do things in batch using their source data.To take advantage of 'As is' you have to choose that option when you first create your Shortlist, you can't apply it retroactively to an existing Shortlist.

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RupertEssinger
Frequent Contributor

Hi Ryan

Thanks for this question. When you create a Story Map Shortlist using the point data in an existing web map there's not an option to automatically show the field names next to the field values that you use to populate the description panel. So you can't see the field names in the description panel, like you would see by default in the attribute list view for popups for the features in a web map. However you can get the effect you want in a Shortlist...

You could of course manually add those field names and format them by editing the description for each place in the Shortlist Builder, but you won't want to do that if you have tons of places.

A better alternative, if you are going to be using points already defined in a web map to create your Shortlist, is to add additional fields into your point data that contain the exact text strings you want, and include that field when you create your Shortlist from the web map containing that data. For example in a spreadsheet containing places I will be using in a Shortlist I may have a field called Photographer that contains the name of the photographer who took the picture for the place defined by that row in the spreadsheet. I can add an additional column into that spreadsheet to contain the text:

  "Photo by:" followed by the value of the Photographer field

which is how I want that value to appear in my Shortlist description panel. You could generate this new field's values automatically using an Excel Concatenate function so you don't need to manually populate the values, and the values will automatically reflect updates you make to the Photographer field. If defining your data in a feature service or shapefile instead of a spreadsheet you could use a field expression to generate the extra field. You can then use that new field in your Shortlist.

In this way you can get the same effect that you asked about but it is more flexible because you aren't limited to just use the name of the field in your layer, which is good especially as GIS field names can be fairly cryptic and abbreviated such that they wouldn't look good in your description panel. This method also lets you control the formatting too because you could also add HTML tags into the text values of the new field to apply formatting like bold and italic.

Hope that helps

Rupert

PS. I hope you have you checked out the 'As is' workflow we added to Shortlist in our March 1st 2017 update for when you create a Shortlist from a web map . This lets you live link your Shortlist to your web map so that updates you make to the data in your web map are automatically reflected in your Shortlist. It is a good option if you are making a data-driven Shortlist and you are happier updating your place data in your GIS than manually in the Shortlist Builder.  This way you can update the point data in your map (either by editing it or completely replacing it with a new layer) and see those changes immediately in your published Shortlist. So it is great for GIS folks who like to do things in batch using their source data.To take advantage of 'As is' you have to choose that option when you first create your Shortlist, you can't apply it retroactively to an existing Shortlist.

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