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.

Here’s a summary of what’s new this month:

• Image links
• Quote source
• Disable the scalebar
• And more…

In addition to the new features summarized below, be sure to check out What’s New in the ArcGIS StoryMaps Briefings Tablet App (November 2023) (esri.com).

Image links

You can now use an image as a link. This can be a great way to provide launching points to external content for your readers. Not only can you add a link to an individual image, but you can also add links to a set of images in a gallery. This lets you create a mosaic of links for readers.

Note that when you add a link to an image, the ability for readers to click to expand the image is not available. The act of clicking the image will open its link instead of expanding it. When hovering over an image with a link, readers will see a very obvious overlay and “Open link” message that lets them know what will happen when they click the image.

The video below provides a walk-through of this new option as well as other available image options. Another change to be aware of is the Attribution field has been moved to the Properties tab in the image and video options to better reflect its purpose and function.

Quote source

When you use a quote in a story, there is now an optional field that lets you specify the source of the quote. The quote source field is nicely integrated into each quote style and looks great in any theme you might use for your story.

Disable the scalebar

There’s now a toggle that lets you turn the scalebar off for web maps in your story. This can be used in situations where you don’t feel the scalebar is adding anything for your readers.

One particular situation where removing the scalebar is helpful is when utilizing a web map in a sidecar for image choreography. What’s image choreography you say? Image choreography is when you use a web map with a media layer and move the image around in a sidecar to focus on different areas. This is a technique our team loves to use to tell stories. To learn more about image choreography and see some examples, see Media layers & ArcGIS StoryMaps: a treasure trove of possibilities (esri.com).

And more…

As always, we’ve also quashed more bugs and made several under-the-hood improvements. For a complete list of changes, be sure to review the release notes.

Thanks to Will Hackney for his contributions to this post.
Image by Eli Digital Creative from Pixabay