Release notes for 4.25

November 2022

Display related records in Popups using the new RelationshipContent content type in PopupTemplate. When configuring RelationshipContent, the related layer or table must be added to the map. Support for editing related records will be added in a later release. Check out the new Browse related records in a popup sample to see the RelationshipContent in action.

browse related records in a popup

Custom cluster styles

FeatureReductionCluster now allows you to override the default style of point clusters with either a dedicated cluster symbol or a renderer. By default, clusters are styled based on the layer's renderer so that the cluster symbol either represents the average value of the features in the cluster, or the most common category.

Cluster symbol

You can now define a custom cluster symbol using the FeatureReductionCluster.symbol property. This will style clusters consistently, while retaining the symbology of individual points defined in the layer's renderer.

cluster symbol

Cluster renderers

You can also create custom cluster renderers based on aggregate fields in the FeatureReductionCluster.fields property. See the Clustering with aggregate fields and the Cluster based on the sum of a field samples to learn how to do this.

Having the ability to create cluster renderers means you can now represent clusters as pie charts. This requires creating aggregate fields for each chart slice and including them in a PieChartRenderer. Because this process can be tedious, we added the pieChart.createRendererForClustering method, which generates the required fields and renderer to set on the featureReduction property of the layer. See the Clusters as pie charts sample to learn more.

Class Breaks RendererPie Chart Renderer
cluster renderer cluster pie chart renderer

3D updates

Full 3D snapping

Draw x, y, and z coordinates while snapping to edges and vertices of existing 3D features in your scene. In addition to feature layers, add 3D object- and building scene layers as candidates to SnappingOptions.featureSources.

Try it out in the 3D editing sample.

Snapping to 3D objects

Length dimensioning

Add dimensioning to show lengths and distances in your scene. Interactively dimension existing features using the previously mentioned 3D snapping. Or place dimensions programmatically using a new type LengthDimension. Using DimensionLayer you can save dimensions to a WebScene and toggle their visibility through slides.

Explore, add and update length dimensions in this new sample.

Length dimensioning in 3D

Terrain shading

A dynamically shaded relief depending on the sun position helps you perceive shape and structure of the terrain. It also contributes to making basemaps more visually appealing in scenes.

Take a look how this improvement helps to understand terrain in 3D.

Terrain shading

Voxel layer updates

Drill deeper into your voxel data using new client-side render capabilities. Visualize separate isosurfaces by only showing voxels that share a specific variable value. To look inside the data, a new property VoxelVolumeStyle.dynamicSections allows you to define vertical planes that cut through the volumes.

To try these voxel layer capabilities in action, visit a new demo app visualizing atmospheric measurements.

Editing updates

FeatureForm calculations can now access data from other layers

The FeatureForm widget now allows you to access data from other layers with FeatureSet functions in field expressions. That means you can derive values based on another layer. For example, you can now calculate fields in a point layer based on values from an intersecting feature in a polygon layer, including layers not part of the map.

We also made significant internal updates to the field calculation process to improve performance:

  1. Only evaluating an expression if and when dependent fields change value, and
  2. Reducing the number of times an expression evaluates while the user is entering information into the form.

Since the Editor widget encapsulates FeatureForm functionality, the updates mentioned here will also be visible in the Editor. Check out this sample demonstrating a rich form experience using multiple field expressions.

Calculated expressions in FeatureForm

2D Tooltip support for Sketch and Editor

Tooltip support was added to 2D Sketch, SketchViewModel, and Editor. The tooltips can display total length of polylines and area of polygons while drawing new features and updating existing features. Support for tooltips in 3D was added at version 4.24.

LengthArea
Sketch tooltip length Sketch tooltip area

Delete features from the FeatureTable widget

The FeatureTable widget now supports deleting selected features via the deleteSelection method. For the method to be successful, there must be at least one selected row in the table, editingEnabled must be true, and the underlying data must support deletion. If deletes are supported, the table's menu will update with a Delete selection menu item. table delete rows

Editor enhancements

The following enhancements were made to the Editor widget at this release:

  1. The user interface (UI) will now update based on the service-level editing capabilities of a FeatureLayer. For instance, the select button to update features will not appear if the feature service does not support Update operations.
  2. Support for adding attachments when creating a new feature. Previously, this was only possible in an update operation.
  3. Support for enabling or disabling attribute or geometry updates through the new properties attributeUpdatesEnabled and geometryUpdatesEnabled in Editor.layerInfos. This provides further app level refinement of editing capabilities that override the service level editing operations. The FeatureLayer must support these operations at the service level in order to use these properties.

Propagating edits in FeatureLayer

FeatureLayer was updated to propagate edits to other layers affected by a single edit. This means that edits to other layers that are a result of attribute rules or composite relationships will now cause the layers affected to refresh and render the updated features. This feature is supported only when calling FeatureLayer.applyEdits with returnServiceEditsOption enabled, and the service returns edits for other layers. This is also supported for SubtypeGroupLayer.

Layer updates

MediaLayer control points

We added support for ControlPointsGeoreference on MediaLayer. An image or video can now be positioned, scaled, and rotated with two control points. Additionally, it will be skewed with three control points. With four control points, a perspective transformation is applied to the element. Check out the new MediaLayer with control points sample to see the ControlPointsGeoreference in use.

MediaLayer control points

MapImageLayer highlight

We enhanced MapImageLayer to highlight the selected feature when displaying its Popup. See the updated sample below.

MIL highlight

Raster layers

Working with multidimensional data

You can set a multidimensionalSubset on ImageryLayer and ImageryTileLayer to expose only a subset of dimensional slices that meet the requirements. Check out the Multidimensional ImageryTileLayer sample to learn more.

We also have updated the documentation for ImageryLayer and ImageryTileLayer to give an overview on how to work with multidimensional data.

The ImageryTileLayer.identify() method can now take advantage of transposed multidimensional tiled image services. When the transposedVariableName is set in the RasterIdentifyOptions, the identify result will return pixel values for all the dimensional slices associated with the service. Learn how this works in the Transposed multidimensional ImageryTileLayer sample.

Transposed ImageryTileLayer

ImageryTileLayer support for COGs

This release adds beta support for adding Cloud Optimized GeoTiff (COG) files to an ImageryTileLayer via the URL property. COG files can take advantage of all the capabilities of ImageryTileLayer. See the ImageryTileLayer with COG sample for more information.

COG imagery tile layer

ImageryLayer performance improvements

We made performance improvements when changing ImageryLayer.renderer for lerc format. At version 4.24, a request to the server would be made every time the renderer was updated. At this release, all updates are happening entirely client-side, as shown in the following GIF.

ImageryLayer - performance

CSVLayer and GeoJSONLayer from portal item

CSVLayer and GeoJSONLayer can be loaded from csv and geojson portal items respectively by either setting portalItem.id on the layer or via Layer.fromPortalItem() method.

StreamLayer connect method

Make a connection to a stream service web socket without having to add the StreamLayer to the MapView, using the StreamLayer.connect() method. Once the connection is established, you can listen to the stream connection's data-received event. We also improved the indicator in the LayerList for StreamLayer connection status.

SubtypeGroupLayer webmap & legend support

A SubtypeGroupLayer can now be loaded from a WebMap published with a subtype group layer. Properties like the renderer will be respected for each sublayer when the layer is loaded from a web map. Additionally, SubtypeGroupLayer is now supported in the Legend widget.

Categorize unique values into groups

UniqueValueRenderer now allows you to group multiple unique values under a common heading. This is useful for improving the readability of maps with a large number of unique categories. Headings and groups are configured in the uniqueValueGroups property. See the Unique value groups with headings sample for more information.

Unique value groups with headings

These new properties will eventually replace uniqueValueInfos. However, we will continue to support uniqueValueInfos so that any updates you make to uniqueValueInfos will be reflected in uniqueValueGroups and vice versa.

Widget updates

Accessibility

For increased accessibility, we made many improvements for better color contrasts in CSS themes, better use of ARIA roles and attributes, and various other accessibility related changes to BasemapGallery, Bookmarks, Directions, Editor, FeatureForm, Print and the five measurements widgets. This makes for a better experience for both users with screen readers and users in general. We plan to continue to improve accessibility in our API in upcoming releases.

New loading indicator for LayerList widgets

We updated the loading indicator in the LayerList, BasemapLayerList, and TableList widgets from a blue line to a less distracting blue circle that will display while the layer is loading.

loading indicator in LayerList

Search performance improvements

In order to make the Search widget faster and more efficient with a layer-based source, we removed the leading wildcard in layer-based source searches. Previously, we included a leading wildcard in the search. This means that if you were searching for Jack Dangermond, and the search term was "mond", Jack Dangermond would return as a suggestion at 4.24. Now at 4.25, "mond" would not return Jack Dangermond. Searching for "Danger" would return Jack Dangermond as a suggestion because the leading wildcard was removed.

FeatureTable - access highlighted rows

Knowledge graph service

KnowledgeGraphService (released in beta) is a new class that connects to existing ArcGIS Enterprise knowledge graph services. A knowledge graph service is composed of a knowledge graph, which contains entities and relationships and the data model that defines the entity types and relationship types in the graph. A knowledge graph service allows users to search, query, and edit the knowledge graph.

Knowledge Graph Service

Binning no longer in beta

FeatureReductionBinning is no longer beta and can now be saved to the web map. This includes updates for how to define aggregate fields. See the binning samples to learn more about this aggregation method.

binning

The smart mapping APIs now support generating renderers for binning visualizations. All supported renderer creator methods now include a forBinning parameter, which should be set to true when generating any style for using in a binning visualization.

Geometry engine updates

GeometryEngine added the intersectLinesToPoints method, which returns the intersection of two polyline geometries as an array of points.

intersect lines to points

Convert SVG to CIMSymbol

At this release, we've added support for symbolService.generateSymbol(), which connects to the REST API to convert a SVG to a CIMSymbol. Converting your SVG to a CIMSymbol allows you to take full advantage of all the different capabilities of CIMSymbols, such as creating multi-layer symbols, using data driven primitive overrides, and more! You can see this new feature in action in the updated CIM Symbol Builder.

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const svgString = `
  <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" height="200" width="200">
    <path d="M150 0 L75 200 L225 200 Z" />
  </svg>
`;
const params = { svgImage: svgString };
symbolService.generateSymbol(symbolServiceUrl, params).then({symbol} => {
  // apply the CIMSymbol to a graphic
  graphicA.symbol = symbol;
});

Human Geography named basemaps

Two new named basemaps were added, arcgis-human-geography and arcgis-human-geography-dark.

arcgis-human-geographyarcgis-human-geography-dark
arcgis-human-geography arcgis-human-geography-dark

Utility network updates

Support was added to load a UtilityNetwork from a portal item that contains a utility network feature service. It is important to note that this feature does not render the utility network data on the map. This will populate the UtilityNetwork properties with the information from the portal item, except for the sharedNamedTraceConfigurations, since this information is stored in the WebMap. Support was added to access the utility network service dirty areas layer. The dirty areas layer URL and layer id can now be accessed from the UtilityNetwork.networkSystemLayers. Support was added to query existing named trace configurations in a utility network with UtilityNetwork.queryNamedTraceConfigurations(). For instance, it is now possible to query the named trace configurations in a utility network by a list of globalIds.

Blogs

There are many wonderful contributions that help explain or showcase concepts related to the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript. To emphasize these efforts, we've created a new Blogs page that offers a curated list of relevant blogs organized by concepts.

Within each concept, there is a list of blogs ordered by the corresponding version of the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript at publication, with publication dates, and links to read the actual blogs. You can access this new page at the top right of the navigation bar.

API retirements

API versions 4.12 and older have been retired. The modules will continue to be hosted on the CDN, however, you will not be able to open technical support tickets on those versions. We recommend actively upgrading any applications using retired versions. For the support status of all API versions, visit the Product Support page.

Removal of non-esri packages from CDN

The CDN will no longer host the following AMD packages for version 4.25 and later: dgrid, dijit, dojo, dojox, dstore, and tslib. API versions 4.24 and earlier will continue to include the packages. The Dojo loader will continue to be included, to allow for AMD support in the browser.

Added classes, properties, methods, events

Deprecated classes, properties, methods, events

View Popup autocasting deprecation

In a continuous effort to optimize the performance of the API, more specifically the load time, the decision was made to stop bundling the Popup with the MapView and SceneView. The Popup widget receives new features regularly, such as when browsing related records. Each new feature added to the popup widget increases the amount of built code and size of the widget that is being sent to the web browser. For example, the Popup module, which is bundled with the MapView, represents around 50% of the size of the bundle.

In a future release, the Popup widget loading will be deferred until the view is ready and will only be loaded if there are layers with a popup configured since it is only useful once content is displayed on the view. This will not disturb the user experience and the popup will still show up when the end user clicks on popup enabled content.

If you are interested in testing this optimization, make sure to check out the early access release description in the 4.26 CHANGELOG, where we will provide more details and strategies to upgrade your code as we get closer to the next release.

Breaking changes

The following classes, methods, properties and events have been deprecated for at least 2 releases and have now been removed from the API:

Class/Property/Method/EventAlternate optionVersion deprecated
esri/views/layers/support/FeatureEffectUse esri/layers/support/FeatureEffect instead4.22
esri/views/layers/support/FeatureFilterUse esri/layers/support/FeatureFilter instead4.22
BasemapToggle.toggle and BasemapToggleViewModel.toggle eventsWatch the activeBasemap property instead4.22
CSVLayerView.effectUse CSVLayerView.featureEffect instead4.22
FeatureLayerView.effectUse FeatureLayerView.featureEffect instead4.22
GeoJSONLayerView.effectUse GeoJSONLayerView.featureEffect instead4.22
OGCFeatureLayerView.effectUse OGCFeatureLayerView.featureEffect instead4.22
PrintViewModel.scaleEnabledUse TemplateOptions.scaleEnabled or PrintTemplate.scalePreserved instead4.22
SearchViewModel.defaultSymbolUse SearchViewModel.defaultSymbols instead4.22
StreamLayerView.effectUse StreamLayerView.featureEffect instead4.22
WFSLayerView.effectUse WFSLayerView.featureEffect instead4.22

Please refer to the Breaking changes guide topic for a complete list of breaking changes across all releases of the 4.x API.

Bug fixes and enhancements

  • BUG-000096750: Add support for events to DirectionsFeatureSet.
  • BUG-000116539: Fixed an issue where the miles unit provided to Geometry Engine operations referred to US survey mile. Now miles refers to the International Mile since the U.S. foot was recently deprecated.
  • BUG-000117009: Fixed an issue where Legend shows multiple entries for grouped UniqueValueRenderer unique value infos.
  • BUG-000128116: Fixed an issue where KMLLayer polygons that crossed the International Date Line were not displayed properly.
  • BUG-000132559: Fixed an issue where loading a MapImageLayer consumed an elevated amount of CPU processor memory.
  • BUG-000133411: Fixed an issue with the CoordinateConversion.formats documentation to make working with formats more clear.
  • BUG-000133810: Fixed an issue where searching non-hosted feature layers with string values containing German letter "ß" failed to match.
  • BUG-000136530: Fixed an issue where composite KMLLayers were not being displayed properly.
  • BUG-000136723: Fixed an issue where MapImageLayer popup queries didn't contain time parameters.
  • BUG-000140586: Fixed an issue where some raster KMLLayers were not being projected correctly.
  • BUG-000141479: Fixed an issue where CSVLayer fields were not parsed correctly if columns contain ", , or more than two white spaces.
  • BUG-000143293: Fixed an issue where labels that overlap with "static" deconflictionStrategy weren't being displayed correctly.
  • BUG-000144640: Fixed an issue where very small polygons (smaller than the view resolution in screen space) were not rendered.
  • BUG-000145323: Fixed an issue where numeric custom expressions formatted with a digit separator failed to display in a pie chart configured in a Popup.
  • BUG-000147013: Fixed an issue where the smart mapping type renderer creator was unable to generate a renderer for an empty polygon layer by the domain field.
  • BUG-000148833: Fixed an issue where clustering a layer with a UniqueValueRenderer showed an incorrect predominant value in the cluster symbol when there were an equal number of features from different categories in one cluster. Now these clusters render with the default symbol defined in the renderer.
  • BUG-000149108: Fixed an issue where the ScaleRangeSlider widget did not honor the resampling property on TileLayers.
  • BUG-000149598: Fixed an issue where popup was not returning all attributes for ImageryLayer's pixel values that equal 0.
  • BUG-000149675: Fixed an issue where performance degradation is observed when continually adding and removing layers.
  • BUG-000150044: Fixed an issue where the start point of a Measurement widget was not being displayed on mobile devices.
  • BUG-000150627: Fixed an issue where the MapView.hittest callbacks are not called on every map click.
  • BUG-000150976: Fixed an issue where the subtype coded value was displaying in popups for MapImageLayers rather than the subtype description.
  • BUG-000151258: Fixed an issue where a WMTSLayers with WKIDs 4326 or 4490 is not fully displayed in the SceneView
  • BUG-000151996: Fixed an issue where blendMode was not being applied to WMSLayer.
  • BUG-000152200: Fixed an issue where ImageryLayer was not refreshing correctly when refreshInterval is set or refresh method is called.
  • BUG-000152279: Fixed an issue where a GraphicsLayer would flash and then disappear when added to the map at a scale less than the layer's minScale.
  • BUG-000152948: Fixed an issue where frames were being dropped when panning maps with >100 MapImageLayers.
  • BUG-000153523: Fixed an issue where tokens for secured proxy services were not being refreshed once they expired.
  • BUG-000153752: Fixed an issue where maps would not load with more than 15 KMLLayers.
  • Esri Community - 1196642: Fixed an issue where MediaLayer was not displaying 24 and 32 bit PNGs with transparent background correctly.
  • Esri Community - 1221122: Fixed an issue where multiple color primitive overrides were not being honored on a CIMPolygonSymbol.
  • Fixed an issue where envelope aggregate statisticType fails for distinct groupby queries in layer views.
  • Fixed an issue where PopupTemplate content defined with a function was not able to access the feature's geometry even though returnGeometry was set to true.
  • Fixed an issue where symbols would flicker in a StreamLayer.
  • Fixed an issue where the CoordinateConversion.mode property was not honored in the CoordinateConversion widget constructor.
  • Fixed an issue where the Legend was missing the field alias for field-based heatmap symbology.
  • Fixed an issue where the MapNotesLayer.fullExtent property was not being calculated correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where the MapView.hitTest was failing on individual features configured with feature reduction and a large cluster radius.
  • Fixed an issue where WMSLayer sublayers were being displayed in reverse order in the LayerList widget.
  • ENH-000085856: Enhanced KMLLayer so it can now display large extent image overlays properly.
  • ENH-000116507: Enhanced MapImageLayer to highlight the selected feature when displaying its Popup.
  • ENH-000127792: Enhanced the Directions widget with a unit property to easily support different distance units.
  • ENH-000139599: Enhanced KMLLayer to project raster layers as KML files using GCS WGS84 as appropriate.
  • ENH-000146060: Enhanced FeatureReductionCluster to work in any projection supported in the JS API.
  • ENH-000149214: Enhanced View to throw an error in the console if an invalid ID for the view's HTML element is set in the container property.
  • ArcGIS Ideas - 940733: Attachment content file names are automatically hidden when the displayType is preview for images in Popups.
  • Added a collapse icon in Popup header to visualize the collapse/expand of the widget.
  • Added extensibility support for WMSLayer popups. You can now use the fetchFeatureInfoFunction to override the default popup behavior on WMSLayer.
  • Added support for configurable maxRecordCount on OGCFeatureLayer to define maximum paging size. This will override the max record count in the service, if defined.
  • Added support for feature collections with type markup using MapNotesLayer.
  • Better handling of errors when a layer fails to load.
  • Displaying AttachmentsContent in a Popup with displayType.preview now automatically hides the attachment's file name when displaying images.
  • Enhanced symbolUtils.renderPreviewHTML by adding support for overrideText and sizing the symbol preview with a width and height on all symbol types.
  • Enhanced the CoordinateConversion.conversions property to accept format names to more easily set the active format.
  • Enhanced the Directions widget to use units based on the portal user profile when applicable.
  • Enhanced the behavior of MapNotesLayer.listMode to have a default value of hide-children instead of show.
  • The VectorTileLayer.setSpriteSource() method was updated so that the sprite source can be set either via URL to fetch the sprite resources or via image info to set the sprites directly on the layer.
  • Updated CustomContent documentation to allow an optional PopupTemplateCreatorEvent parameter for the PopupTemplateContentCreator and the PopupTemplateContentDesroyer to reference the graphic used to represent the feature.
  • Updated RouteLayer so the resulting feature collection will use ObjectID as the object ID field when saved in a webmap or to a new or existing portal item. Previously the field was named __OBJECTID.
  • When embedding a video in a popup using the HTML <video> tag, the video will automatically resize to fit inside the popup if it is larger than the popup window.

Additional packages

Version 4.25 of the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript uses ArcGIS Arcade 1.20 (since 4.25).

Version 4.25 of the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript uses Calcite Design System (Beta), version 1.0.0-beta.97.

How to access the SDK

  • The API library is available on both CDN and npm, read more at Get started.
  • For supported versions, you can also download both the documentation and the API library. These downloads are typically available 3-4 weeks after release.

Previous releases

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