Spectrum Spatial (SSA/LIM)

Can I have a layer that is displayed, but not selectable when you click on the map? Some layers (such as the LGA boundary) do not need to be selected, they're a visual aid only.

It would also mean I could have layers set up purely for different labeling options and turning them on doesn't create second copies of data.

Leaving the layer not selectable before upload doesn't appear to help, and there doesn't appear to be option elsewhere?

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And as I hit send on this comment, my director dropped in and asked "Can you make the selected parcel highlight when you click on it?"

Of course the answer right now is no.

I explained that in Exponare you could turn on and off selectability, but that is not an option in SSA and highlighting your selection is not an option

I did say you could add it as an annotation but again, that gets messy fast.

He mentions it is particularly helpful to confirm a) you have the right object selected and b) the extent of the object

 

 

 

Good question Rebecca... I haven't been able to find a way, I hope I have overlooked this one too, and I guess it comes back to SSA once again not adhering to "honoring" settings made in MIP before uploading to SSA. In terms of the LGA layer, we have uploaded an LGA layer that doesn't include your own LGA polygon but does include all surrounding LGA's. We have done this so every time a user clicks on an object within your own LGA area that you don't always have results coming back about your own LGA... another work around!

In terms of your suggestion to be able to upload additional layers just for labeling purposes, we have done that for the DCDB/Property layer (auto labelled with House Number) where users are able to apply additional label's with Lot/Plan and CT Reference, this is done by uploading 2 additional copies of the DCDB layer named as LotPlan and CT Ref.. hope that makes sense. The downside of this as you mentioned, these layers get selected and results displayed! We are just after the labelling effect but we are stuck with not being able to turn off select-ability for these...arghhh..

Oh that's useful Tony! I'm definitely going to do the LGA fix

And yes, I have four copies of the property layer open. One is black lines, one is white lines, one is grey lines and one is thick black lines (lots group by assessment number)

One layer has title description, one has street address, one has owner name and one has owner name and street address (that was a special request)

 

And as I hit send on this comment, my director dropped in and asked "Can you make the selected parcel highlight when you click on it?"

Of course the answer right now is no.

I explained that in Exponare you could turn on and off selectability, but that is not an option in SSA and highlighting your selection is not an option

I did say you could add it as an annotation but again, that gets messy fast.

He mentions it is particularly helpful to confirm a) you have the right object selected and b) the extent of the object

@Rebecca Marks? 

Hello Rebecca,

as far as I'm aware (but of course I might be wrong) adding non selectable layer to Spectrum is not possible. When it comes to "Can you make the selected parcel highlight when you click on it?" did you try Multi-Select feature which is availabe in SSA 12.2?

Hm, hopefully it is something that can be considered for future releases. Cosmetic layers that are for viewing and not for returning information would be extremely useful.

Multiselect does indeed highlight objects. It's an inconvenient work around though, as you'd need to turn it on, click on what you were after, cancel it, turn it back on and then click the next object (if you didn't want more than one object highlighted). That or click back on the first object to deselect it, that would be a bit easier.

Arkadiusz, good pickup about using the 'multi-select' feature to highlight selected objects. The only problem we have as administrators with a few hundred end users to answer to is that in generally end users are lazy (human nature!) and simply don't want to have to make any extra 'clicks' unless they have to, the thing that makes this more frustrating is that our previous system the users could make a single click on any object and highlight it.

I believe this topic has been raised a number of times in the past both at this level as well as at the Andy a' level, we really need this to be either implemented as a default or at least an option for us administrator's to be able to turn on..

That is accurate. While I can teach my internal staff a handful of workarounds for some of these inconveniences, once the maps go public I'd potentially have thousands of end users with no training expected to use them

I got around a similar issue with cosmetic labels (road labels on an aerial photo) by adding it as a map and then converting it to tiles in spatial manager. This is then added as a basemap. The labels just show up as part of the aerial but aren't selectable.

 

I haven't been able to get it quite right yet though with some labels showing up multiple times near each other even though I have duplicate labels turned off. It's like it is labelling each tile.

 

 

This is being addressed in the current development work which will be in the next release (at end of October 2018). We are adding the ability for admins to specify for each layer in each map whether map information should be enabled. That release will include a totally new and more user friendly/visual way to define map projects (the new name for map configurations) in SSA.

 

For highlighting records we donow (as of the 12.2 release) have a "show on map" button against each record on the left hand side info panel. Clicking it will highlight the record on the map. Closing the left panel then discards the highlight. This is similar to clicking a row on a query result and seeing the record highlighted.

That would be fantastic! I look forward to it

 

As for "show on map" - I can't find it? I have "Add as annotation" or export to csv. This is v12.2 with the latest patches?

Hi Rebecca it should be a blue button above each map information record as shown here. Perhaps clear your local browser cache if SSA 12.2 is recently installed?

Hello

I tried it in an incognito browser and no luck. I'm going to have to get IT to have another look at it.

Thanks for your help

I remember others asking about this, yet this is the first time I have heard of the "See on map" feature. How do you enable this? I don't see it in SSA v12.2. The browser cache has been cleared multiple times and different browsers used.

"See on map" option would appear in SSA 12.2.0 S01, i.e. the patch that was released in June.

Thanks, Abhiraj! This is a much needed feature.

Good news! My "See on map" button is now functional. It is very handy

Re non selectable - I got around the LGA boundary issue by making it a polyline instead of a polygon to make it harder to accidentally select. It's not ideal but it works for at least that layer.

Hi Rebecca, Hope you’re well.. The polyline option sounds like a good work-around, the only thing is do you need to label the surrounding LGA’s with their names? Tony

I haven't had them labeled, but if I chose to, I could still leave those areas as polygons and just leave ours as a polyline or include the label as a text object