ArcGIS StoryMaps is the professional storytelling tool that enables you to transform your geographic work into interactive content to inform and inspire others. It makes it easy to explain complex topics related to your knowledge and experience. ArcGIS StoryMaps is updated regularly with new features and capabilities, and here’s what’s been added recently:
Share code snippets
You can now share snippets of code with readers using the brand new code block! The code block will be helpful if you’re a developer attending a conference to share your work (such as the upcoming 2023 Esri Developer Summit, for example). We also think that educators and students will love the code block because it makes it so easy to share scripts or expressions in class materials or projects.
As you may have guessed, the code block can be found next to all the other content blocks in the block palette. Once you add a code block you’ll be able to type or paste code into it. Like other blocks, you can adjust the size, but one feature that is unique to the code block that we think you’ll want to take advantage of syntax highlighting. Just pop into the code block options and select the language of the code you’ve added and voila! the code is highlighted to make it more readable and useful. You’ll find that the ArcGIS Mapping SDK languages are supported as well as Python, Arcade, and many other popular development languages.
If readers need to grab the code you’ve shared to use it in their own projects, they can do so using the handy copy button to pull the entire snippet to their clipboard.
Review this video to see how to use the code block to share your code snippets. You can also check out an example of code blocks in use in this gorgeous story about how to create spike maps in ArcGIS Pro using Arcade.
Include an overview map
Whenever you add a map to a story you can now include an overview map to provide more geographic context for your readers. The overview map is a global view that indicates the current extent of the main map. As a reader moves around in the main map, the overview map automatically rotates and updates the extent indicator to reflect the currently viewed area.
It’s easy to enable an overview map on any of your maps; just go to the Options panel in the map designer and toggle it on for any express map, web map, or web scene.
See the overview map in action in Is the world full or empty? and see how to add one to your maps in this video.
Rotate and flip images
Additional tools are included in the image editing capabilities that were initially released in ArcGIS StoryMaps back in November 2022. Along with the previously available crop and markup capabilities, you’ll now find tools to flip and rotate images that you’ve uploaded to a story. These manipulations can be useful when you need to create a mirror image of a photograph or if the rotation information for an image is incorrect or missing. Be sure to take these new flip and rotate tools for a spin soon!
You’ll find these new tools on the Crop tab of the image editor, as you can see in the clip below.
For more information about editing images, see Getting started with ArcGIS StoryMaps and A Guide to Working with Images in ArcGIS StoryMaps.
And more…
Another improvement you’ll notice is that when reviewing your items in ArcGIS Online on your Content page or a group page or in search results, you’ll now immediately be able to know which items are stories and which are collections.
ArcGIS Online has also been updated with a host of new mapping capabilities, like the new media layer, that you can now use in ArcGIS StoryMaps. For more information about what’s new in mapping and other areas of ArcGIS, see What’s new in ArcGIS Online (February 2023).
As usual our team has also worked on enhancing performance, improving stability, and updating blogs and documentation with the latest information and best practices. For a complete list of changes and fixes, see the Release notes.
Banner photo by Vipul Jha on Unsplash
Article Discussion: