You may have heard*that Google is retiring Picasa and transitioning its cloud photo hosting services to Google Photos. You also may have heard about changes to Picasa’s developer API that went into effect on May 1, 2016. You also may be wondering what all this means if you are a story map author. Read on to find out!
First, the good news
The good news is…there isn’t any bad news:
Where should I put photos I want to use in story maps?
If you are in need of a service to host photos on the web for a story map, we recommend Flickr. Flickr is a mature cloud photo service, is not in the midst of any technology or branding transitions, and optimizes the storage and delivery of photos to story maps.
Story Map apps also let you browse and use public photos on Facebook. If you already have photos on Facebook it’s easy to use them in a story map, but it’s not usually the best solution to manage and host new photos for your stories.
Another option is to store photos on your own web server or in a*cloud file storage service*(such as Dropbox or Amazon S3). To do this you need to link to each image from the Story Map Builder using the image’s URL. It’s also important to know these storage methods are not optimized for storing and serving photos, so you may need to do additional work (such as manually resize images and/or manage multiple copies of each image) in order to get the same experience provided by Flickr.
We’re also excited to let you know that the Builders for the new Story Map apps being released this summer will let you upload your photos directly to ArcGIS Online and easily use them in stories. This will make it much easier to use your images in story maps, and we will work to enhance existing Story Map apps with this capability in future releases. (Note that Story Map Tour already has this capability.)
Can I use Google Photos?
Sure, you can use Google Photos, but it currently requires a little extra effort. As of this blog post, there’s no way to make photos public in Google Photos, but you can do this in Picasa.
To make photos uploaded to Google Photos public and visible to Story Map apps follow the steps below:
* * *1. Upload your photos to Google Photos and collect them in an album
* * *2. Go to*Picasa Web Albums
* * *3. Click on the album you want to use in a story map
* * *4. In the right sidebar click Share
5. Make sure*Public*appears in the*To:*field and click*Share
The album and photos should now be visible in Story Map apps. For example, in Story Map Journal click Add section, choose Image*for the type of content for your main stage, then choose Picasa, enter your Google account name, and click Load albums.
أكثر...
First, the good news
The good news is…there isn’t any bad news:
-
Photos in Picasa that are used in existing story maps will continue to work. - Photos in Picasa can still be used*to make new story maps.
Where should I put photos I want to use in story maps?
If you are in need of a service to host photos on the web for a story map, we recommend Flickr. Flickr is a mature cloud photo service, is not in the midst of any technology or branding transitions, and optimizes the storage and delivery of photos to story maps.
Story Map apps also let you browse and use public photos on Facebook. If you already have photos on Facebook it’s easy to use them in a story map, but it’s not usually the best solution to manage and host new photos for your stories.
Another option is to store photos on your own web server or in a*cloud file storage service*(such as Dropbox or Amazon S3). To do this you need to link to each image from the Story Map Builder using the image’s URL. It’s also important to know these storage methods are not optimized for storing and serving photos, so you may need to do additional work (such as manually resize images and/or manage multiple copies of each image) in order to get the same experience provided by Flickr.
We’re also excited to let you know that the Builders for the new Story Map apps being released this summer will let you upload your photos directly to ArcGIS Online and easily use them in stories. This will make it much easier to use your images in story maps, and we will work to enhance existing Story Map apps with this capability in future releases. (Note that Story Map Tour already has this capability.)
Can I use Google Photos?
Sure, you can use Google Photos, but it currently requires a little extra effort. As of this blog post, there’s no way to make photos public in Google Photos, but you can do this in Picasa.
To make photos uploaded to Google Photos public and visible to Story Map apps follow the steps below:
* * *1. Upload your photos to Google Photos and collect them in an album
* * *2. Go to*Picasa Web Albums
* * *3. Click on the album you want to use in a story map
* * *4. In the right sidebar click Share
5. Make sure*Public*appears in the*To:*field and click*Share
The album and photos should now be visible in Story Map apps. For example, in Story Map Journal click Add section, choose Image*for the type of content for your main stage, then choose Picasa, enter your Google account name, and click Load albums.
أكثر...