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Use URL parameters

Apps created with Web AppBuilder can be modified directly with URL parameters. The URL always begins with <your app>/? and includes one or more of the parameters listed below. Your app can be deployed in your web server or in Web AppBuilder. To include more than one parameter, use an ampersand (&) to separate the parameters. The following is an example:

The following is a deployed app:

https://<your hosted app>/?find=380 new york street, redlands, ca&locale=fr

The following is an app launched in Web AppBuilder:

https://<your machine name>:3344/webappbuilder/apps/4/?find=380 new york street, redlands, ca&locale=fr
Tip:

There is another way to construct URL parameters. Add the Share widget to the app and click Link Options. Link preview displays the parameters you selected, and a shortcut link that includes the URL parameters is automatically generated. Be aware that the Search widget must be enabled in the app to use the find parameter.

Note:

Currently, 3D apps do not support URL parameters.

Encode the query parameters

All query parameters must be encoded. Encoding replaces invalid characters with % followed by their hex equivalent.

For example, the following is an unencoded URL parameter:

https://<your app>/?find=380 new york street, redlands, ca

Here is the same parameter encoded:

https://<your app>/?find=380%20new%20york%20street,%20redlands,%20ca

The web has many free sites and tools for generating encoded URLs. For example, Albion Research Ltd. has a URLEncode and URLDecode Page. For readability, the rest of the examples in this topic are not encoded.

Center the map

To center the map at a particular location, set center= using geographic coordinates (x,y) or projected coordinates (x,y,WKID).

Caution:

You can use commas or semicolons as separators. Use semicolons if your numbers use colons as their decimals.

The following is a geographic coordinates example:

https://<your app>/?center=34,-50

The following is a projected coordinates example:

https://<your app>/?center=500000,5500000,102100

Define the scale level

To define the scale level of the map, use the center= and level= parameters. The level parameter accepts the level ID of the cache scale as listed in the map service's REST endpoint. The following is an example:

https://<your app>/??center=20,45&level=4

Define the scale

To define the scale of the map, use the center= and scale= parameters. The scale parameter accepts the cache scale as listed in the map service's REST endpoint. The following is an example:

https://<your app>/?center=20,45&scale=4622324

Define the extent

To define the extent of the map, use extent= to define the extent of the map. The extent parameter accepts geographic coordinates (GCS) as MinX,MinY,MaxX,MaxY , projected coordinates (PCS) as MinX,MinY,MaxX,MaxY,WKID, or Well-Known Text String (WKT) as MinX,MinY,MaxX,MaxY,WKT. You can use commas or semicolons as separators. Use semicolons if your numbers use colons as their decimals.

The following is a geographic coordinates example:

https://<your app>/?extent=-117.20,34.055,-117.19,34.06

The following is a projected coordinates example:

https://<your app>/?extent=-13079253.954115,3959110.38566837,-12918205.318785,4086639.70193162,102113

The following is a Well-Known Text String example:

https://<your app>/?extent=1008562.1255,1847133.031,1060087.7901,1877230.7859,wkt=PROJCS["NAD_1983_HARN_StatePlane_Illinois_East_FIPS_1201",GEOGCS["GCS_North_American_1983_HARN",DATUM["D_North_American_1983_HARN",SPHEROID["GRS_1980",6378137.0,298.257222101]]

Set layers' visibility

To set the layers' visibility for the map, you can use showLayers= to specify visible layers, or use hideLayers= to turn layers off. The showLayers= and hideLayers= parameters accept a single layer ID or multiple layer IDs. For multiple layers, use a semicolon to separate the list of IDs (&showLayers=<layerID>;<layerID>;<layerID>).

The following is an example: https://<your app>?extent=-117.20,34.055,-117.19,34.06&showLayers=Census_8491;Census_8492;Census_8493

Layer names are also acceptable. However, using the layer ID is more reliable because the layer name can be changed. You can retrieve the layer ID from the content of the web map item: https://<your portal url>/sharing/rest/content/items/<webmapItemID>/data/?f=pjson.

When you use the showLayers= or hideLayers= parameters to set the visibility for a sublayer, it only affects the visibility of layers at the same level. For example, if your map contains two group layers (A and B) with three sublayers each (A1, A2, A3 and B1, B2, B3), and you use the showLayers= parameter to show sublayer B2, both group layers A and B will still be turned on in the map, but the sublayers B1 and B3 will be turned off.

Tip:

When the value to parameter showLayers= or hideLayers= is empty, no layers will be visible, or all layers will be visible correspondingly.

Caution:

If you list a lot of layers or the names are lengthy when you set the showLayers= or hideLayers= parameter, the URL may be too long for the server to interpret. (Different servers can have unique length limitations for URLs.)

Find a location or feature to open the map

To find a location or feature to use to open the map, use find=. The map is automatically zoomed to the closest match and a callout marker is added to the map. The find parameter accepts single-line addresses, partial addresses (such as city only or country only), place-names, longitude-latitude coordinates, and features in searchable layers (such as 1916352001 for a parcel identification number [PIN]). The following is an example:

https://<your app>/?find=380 new york street, redlands, ca
Caution:

All query parameters must be encoded, and the Search widget must be enabled in the app to use this parameter.

Add a point

To add a point to the map, use marker=<x>,<y>. The point is added to the map at the specified x and y location. You can also include the following optional properties:

  • <wkid>—Spatial reference of the x,y coordinates added to the map. If you do not include a WKID, GCS coordinates are used.
  • <encoded title>—Title of the point pop-up. If you do not include a title, the pop-up will be empty.
  • <encoded icon URL>—Symbol for the point. If you do not include a symbol, a blue marker symbol is used.
  • <encoded label>—Label next to the point symbol.

Keep the following in mind when adding a point:

  • <x>,<y> are required.
  • Be sure to encode the title, icon, and label parameters.
  • You must add properties in this order: marker=<x>,<y>,<wkid>,<encoded title>,<encoded icon URL>,<encoded label>.
  • You can use commas or semicolons as separators. Use semicolons if your numbers use colons as their decimals.
  • Use empty values. Do not use spaces. For example, if you want to specify a label and no other optional property, add the label as the sixth parameter with empty values for the others (x;y;;;;label).
  • If you want the map to zoom in (in addition to centering on the point), include the level= parameter.

The following is an example:

https://<your app>/?marker=-79.234826;38.147884;;Race start and finish;;Grindstone 100 Ultra Marathon&level=7

Query feature

To query a feature and zoom to it, you can use one of the following options:

  • query=<layer name>,<field name>,<field value>
  • query=<layer id>,<field name>,<field value>
  • query=<layer name>, <where clause>
  • query=<layer id>, <where clause>
Tip:

You can also construct URL parameters interactively. Add the Share widget to the app and click Link Options. Choose the Query a feature and zoom to it option and select the layer, field, and field value you want to query against. Copy the URL in Link preview that contains the URL parameters you specified. Remove the Share widget from the app if it's not needed.

Caution:

All the query parameters are case sensitive and must be encoded.

The where clause follows SQL standard. When where clause has, for example, the IN operation, use the semicolon instead of separating layer name or id from the where clause with commas, as shown below. The reason is because a comma is used in the where clause specifically to build the list of values such as ('A11', 'A12', 'A13) or ('Charlotte', 'Chicago'). This allows the query parameter to be parsed properly to distinguish what the layer and where clause are.

  • query=<layer name>; <where clause>
  • query=<layer id>; <where clause>

Since the layer name can be changed, it is strongly recommended that you use the layer ID in the query. You can retrieve the layer ID from the web map ID, as shown below.https://<your portal url>/sharing/rest/content/items/32a83775654249dcae6b8f2eff5d4072/data/?f=pjson.

Caution:

Make sure the web map is shared publicly when you retrieve the layer ID.

For example, a layer is added to the map individually, as shown below in the JSON format. It has a layer id of Census_8491, field name of POP2000, and field value of 1211537. You can perform the following queries:

id: "Census_8491",
layerType: "ArcGISFeatureLayer",
url: "https://sampleserver6.arcgisonline.com/arcgis/rest/services/Census/MapServer/3",
visibility: true,
opacity: 1,
mode: 1,
title: "Census - states",

https://<your app>/?query=Census_8491,POP2000,1211537
https://<your app>/?query=Census_8491,POP2000=1211537

You can also do queries against the string or OBJECTID.

https://<your app>/?query=Census_8491,STATE_NAME,California
https://<your app>/?query=Census_8491,STATE_NAME='California'
https://<your app>/?query=Census_8491,OBJECTID,1

Often a layer is added as a group of map services. To query a sublayer in a group, use <layer id_sublayer id> as the layer id instead. Using the following layer as an example, it has a layer id of Census_3217 and a sublayer id of index of 3. The layer id for the sublayer should be Census_3217_3. You can perform the following queries:

id: "Census_3217",
layerType: "ArcGISMapServiceLayer",
url: "https://sampleserver6.arcgisonline.com/arcgis/rest/services/Census/MapServer",
visibility: true,
opacity: 1,
title: "Census"

https://<your app>/?query=Census_3217_3,POP2000,1211537
https://<your app>/?query=Census_3217_3,POP2000=1211537
https://<your app>/?query=Census_8491;STATE_NAME in ('California', '')

Switch locale

To switch the app language, use the locale URL parameter and a two-letter ISO 639-1 language code. Web AppBuilder supports all languages that ArcGIS Online supports, which includes the following language codes: ar, bg, bs, ca, cs, da, de, el, en, es, et, fi, fr, he, hr, hu, id, it, ja, ko, lt, lv, nb, nl, pl, pt-br, pt-pt, ro, ru, sk, sl, sr, sv, th, tr, uk, vi, zh-cn, zh-hk, and zh-tw.

To use your app in French, for example, append locale=fr to the URL like this:

https://<your app>/?locale=fr

Control when to turn on mobile layout

The app supports two styles of layout based on the screen size. One is for desktop and one is for mobile devices. When either the height or width of a screen display is less than 600 pixels, the mobile layout is applied automatically. However, this may result in unexpected behavior when the app is embedded in a website. For example, the pop-up in the website changes to the mobile layout style. To control the layout style, use mobileBreakPoint=<pixel number>. For example, you can remain in desktop style until the screen size is less than 300 pixels, as shown below:

https://<your app>/?mobileBreakPoint=300

Run apps in a different config file

By default, the app runs in the config.json file in the stemapp or stemapp3d folder. If you want to apply a different config file to the app, such as myConfig.json in the stemapp\sample-configs folder, use config=<file name>.

The following is an example:

https://<your app>/?config=sample-configs/myConfig.json

Disable WebGL

By default, the app renders layers using WebGL. Disabling WebGL may improve memory issues on small devices, including phones and tablets. If you want to disable WebGL, use disableFLWebGL=1.

The following is an example:

https://<your app>/?disableFLWebGL=1

Switch map navigation mode to classic

By default, the app uses CSS3 transformations (if supported by the browser) to provide a smoother experience while panning and zooming the map. CSS3 transformations may cause performance issues on devices with less memory, including phones and tablets. If you want to switch from "css-transform" mode to "classic" mode, use mapUseClassicNavMode=1.

The following is an example:

https://<your app>/?mapUseClassicNavMode=1