How To Improve Image Accessibility for Esri Map Tour StoryMap Application

Providing the most accessible websites and browser-based applications should be a goal for every web developer.  Most of my work is with web mapping applications.  And while I consider myself relatively new to web accessibility, I am taking steps on improving this within my organization. In this article, I wanted to share my solution for …

My Attempt To Make The Map Series StoryMap “More Maps” Button More Intuitive

Ever since Esri released the StoryMaps platform, I was a fan.  I remember working with the Lancaster County Planning Commission thinking about how we could deploy one of these for the Northwest River Trail.  When I took the opportunity to work as a GIS Specialist with Cumberland County, I built my first StoryMap showcasing the …

How We Developed a Print Widget Solution for Esri Web AppBuilder

The Property Mapper is our most popular web mapping application.  It allows users to search for properties and get information for tax records.  People might use this website when searching for a new house, or working on a tax assessment appeal (to reduce their property taxes). A few years ago, we migrated this site from …

Building A Leaflet.js Map App With A jQuery UI Date Picker

From 2010 to 2018, Cumberland County was the fastest growing county in the state of Pennsylvania. For a more detailed look, you can check out the Pennsylvania State Data Center's report (pdf). With that growth, comes many subdivision and land development plans that need to be reviewed by the County's Planning Department. They review these …

My Experience Contributing to Open Source Projects

2019 is only two and a half months in, but I've already been more active in the open source community than I had anticipated.   During this short period of time, I've pushed code to the Esri Leaflet Doc, Esri Leaflet Vector, and Esri Leaflet Geocoder libraries.  I don't state this to boast in myself, but to …

Why I’m Building a Blog Site With Jekyll

The subtitle for this article should be "A Novice's Journey of Building Multiple Websites."  And I understand the immediate irony of reading an article on WordPress about building a blogging site using Jekyll.  But over the course of this article, I'll share some experiences I've had building websites on a few different platforms.  And I'll …

Using ArcPy Search Cursors to Perform Spatial Analysis by Each Record in a Jurisdictional Dataset

Cumberland County is in the process of updating our Hazard Mitigation Plan.  Our GIS Department is focused on developing a web map series application, and performing various spatial analyses to support the plan. One of the first analyses we were asked to complete was to get a count of the number of structures in the …

How to Create a Featured Image Template for a Jekyll Blog Site

I wanted to share a solution I came up with for displaying a blog post's Featured Image on a Jekyll site.  There are two primary places I want to display this image: The page containing the blog post (post page) Within a loop of blog posts on any number of pages (i.e., home page, blog …

Announcing the Python for ArcGIS Course

Last summer was a busy and exciting season of life.  My wife and I welcomed our third child into the world, and I had the opportunity to develop the Python for ArcGIS course for Harrisburg Area Community College.  This self-paced online course is now available to purchase. The course consists of video lessons, exercises, and recommended …

Are You Thinking About Your Map Users?

Over the past few years, I've been working on a side project to update the hiking trails map for a small camp.  Though the project has taken longer than I anticipated, it has been very rewarding.  This past week, I think we finally finished the map.  And it was during this last revision process that …