Maps limited to 2 layers?

Tom_automated · 10-28-2020 08:59 PM

Is the map view limited to 2 layers? I’d like to create a map with 4 layers. Basically, a different group of pins for each layer. I’d prefer all the pins be on the same map rather than on different maps so that the user can select / deselect each layer according to their preference. Is this possible? I thought I saw a good sample app of this, but can’t seem to find it again.

Mariano_Sanz_Gi

I am also very interested in that feature. I could implement it in several applications and give them new functionality.

Aleksi

Have you thought to use different map icons and colors for different “layers”? Then you could use just one layer.

Tom_automated

I’ve already done that, but I also want to be able to choose to hide pins; therefore layers are needed.

Steve

This could be done with a slice. You’d have to engineer it, though.

Tom_automated

As far as I know, there is no method of hiding / un hiding slices. So even if my pins are on different slices, you still can’t hide / unhide the pins.

Steve

You cannot hide slices, but you can “hide” rows of slices.

Tom_automated

How do you hide rows? Is there an example somewhere?

Steve

The slice’s row filter can use data from other tables. You’d need to setup actions to show and hide “layers” by changing the values the filter uses to decide what to display.

Markus_Malessa

I think there are both pros and cons to offering more layers vs just using format rules to designate how map pins look. Of course if you need 4 different tables displayed in a single map then the 2 layer limitation is a real problem. However, I have also run into the issue with formatting rules for map pins that would affect the performance of the app. Personally I wouldn’t mind if Appsheet would incorporate Open Street Maps (OSM) instead of GMaps, but now that they are part of Google I highly doubt that will happen.

I think ultimately even if formatting rules are applied to make map pins show up differently there still needs to be some type of map control that would let you turn on/off all pins that are associated with a particular rule. I know I can get this accomplished with custom filters also, but that discussion relates back to the comment I have made before about filters needing a separate table to store those filter values vs just offering some type of filter object that is just particular to each session and gets wiped from memory when the app is closed. I for one had to create a separate Google Sheet for custom filter functionality that applies to map pin filtering because I did not want to create a separate SQL table to be able to do this. But this backdoor system also appears to use a lot of memory so there is somewhat of a lag between saving the new filter values to the Sheet and then redrawing the map pins.

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Could you please mention a bit more about the use case? How long a user’s preference will remain unchanged in practical use? Meaning, are the users likely to change their preference for different groups of pins every now and then or is the selected preference likely to remain for say a day or at least a few hours of app usage?

Tom_automated

Users would likely change their preferences very often. I think the sample app that I still can’t relocate was probably a KML map? I’m just using Google maps. Users would hide/unhide pins as a quick and easy comparison method.

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Okay, thank you. In that case I do not have any specific suggestion. If it was more persistent selection of any one group, either different slices based maps or user settings could have been options.

I believe a user based filter is another option with an approach something like below. However it will need a user table to save each user’s different selections and a dashboard configuration as in the sample app below.

https://www.appsheet.com/samples/Allow-the-user-to-filter-a-view-based-on-a-form?appGuidString=91266...

Steve

Yes