With map.apps 4.11 a new version of map.apps is available for download, which brings new features and significant performance improvements. In addition, this release includes an update of the base technology. This article provides an overview of all major new features and presents them in detail.
Performance improvements
map.apps 4.11 provides significant optimizations with regard to better performance. The display of the map and the initial start of an app are accelerated considerably. In addition, the visual performance perceived by the user is positively influenced by smooth, continuous transitions. Furthermore, database connections are optimized, requests are reduced and transferred files are compressed better.
For an even faster app start, there is now a mode for pre-optimizing an app, which can be activated per app. This function is still in the beta stage in this release.
Depending on the structure of an app (number of bundles, size and number of additional files in an app, number of map layers) and the amount and frequency of user accesses, significant improvements can be achieved when starting and using an app. When launching a "typical" app (many functions, some map services), the number of requests sent from the browser to the map.apps server and the map servers could be reduced by 20% on the first call and by 60% on repeated calls to the app.
Other effects only become obvious, for example, when many users access an app in close proximity to each other. Pre-calculations and server-side caching mechanisms drastically reduce the waiting time for individual users.
The following example shows an app with many configured map layers in map.apps 4.10 (left) and map.apps 4.11 (right) loading without caching. In this example, the number of requests sent from the browser to the map.apps server and the map servers could be reduced by 70% on the first call and by 97% on repeated calls to the app.
Show legend in map content control (TOC)
The map content control can now additionally display the legend for individual layers. This option is available for ArcGIS Feature and MapServer layers.
Further new functions and improvements
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The ArcGIS API for JavaScript used by map.apps as technical basis is updated to version 4.18 with this release. This leads to numerous improvements and bug fixes in the base technology.
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The time until a user is logged out when inactive can now be configured via a global setting.
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Several enhancements have been made to improve the use of OGC API features layers.
Internet Explorer 11
This release includes an update of the ArcGIS API for JavaScript to version 4.18. With this release, Esri discontinued support for Internet Explorer 11 and Edge Legacy (see So Long Internet Explorer 11 and Thanks for All the Views). For map.apps this also means that map.apps 4.11 can no longer be used with Internet Explorer 11 and Edge Legacy.
Final notes
In addition to the above, this release contains other improvements and bug fixes. As always, a complete list of all changes can be found in the release notes.