Choosing the look and feel of the application

After choosing layers and tasks, you'll set the supporting details for the application such as title, links, and which map elements to display.

Two panels of Manager assist you in configuring the look and feel of your application. The first allows you to set the page properties, namely the title text, theme, and links to external Web sites. The second panel includes a list of map elements that you can enable and configure for the application.

You can access these panels while either creating a new Web application or editing an existing application in Manager.

How to set the page properties

1. Ensure that you are on the Set Page Properties panel of Manager, as explained above.
2. Type the title text for your application. This is the text that users will see on the top banner of the application. This text will also appear in the Web browser's title bar.
3. Choose one of the predefined themes for your application.
4. Choose which links you want to appear on the top banner of the application. If you want to add your own link, click Add link and type a name and the complete URL of the site you want to link to.
5. When you've finished setting the page properties, click Next to view the panel for enabling and configuring map elements.

Tip: For further information about how you can configure the look of your Web application outside of Manager, see the topic "Customizing the Web Mapping Application" in the ArcGIS Server .NET Developer Help.

How to enable and configure the map elements

1. Ensure that you are viewing the Enable Map Elements panel of Manager, as explained above.
2. Uncheck the boxes next to any map elements you want to disable. All of the elements are enabled by default.

3. If you want to further configure the settings for a map element, click its Settings button. A panel of options will appear for the element, which you can set to customize the way the element looks and behaves.

The following list defines the available map elements and provides tips for configuring each:

• Table of Contents - Displays the layers in the map and optionally allows users to check them on and off. You can choose to not show symbology in the table of contents, which may improve performance.

• Overview Map - Shows the user's position on the main map relative to a smaller-scale inset map. In some cases, you might want your overview map and your main map to come from different map services. Be aware that if you use a cached map for the overview map, the smallest scale image will need to be resampled to fit the overview map size, and the display quality may be less than expected. To work around this, create the cache at a very small scale, or use a noncached service for the overview map.

  You can set either a static or interactive mode for the overview map. By default, the mode is static, which results in the best performance. If your application requires that the overview map be closely in sync with the map, you can choose the interactive mode. In interactive mode, the overview map extent updates automatically whenever the Web application user zooms or pans the map. The user can also resize the area of interest box.

• Toolbar - Contains tools for zooming, panning, identifying, and magnifying the map. You cannot add or remove tools from the toolbar using Manager, but you can do this if you edit the application in Microsoft Visual Studio.
• Navigation - Allows users to pan the map by clicking and holding the mouse over the edges of the control. You can specify an image for the Navigation control (this is the default), or you can pick a north arrow from the ESRI North font or another font that you provide.
• Scale bar - Displays the relation between distance on the screen and distance on the ground. The scale bar will only appear if you are using the default extent and coordinate system of an ArcGIS Server service or an ArcIMS image service. You can set the units in Manager, as well as the bar and text color. Set these colors with your map in mind. You'll want to use light colors if your map is generally dark and dark colors if your map is light.
• Zoom level - Restricts users to specific scales in your map through a slider control, common to many Web mapping sites. You can use the Zoom Level slider to easily jump between known scale levels. The Zoom Level slider is especially appropriate for cached services, since the Web application limits users to viewing the cached scales only.
• Map copyright text - Makes a copyright link available on your application, which users can click to see any copyright information for the service. To make copyright information available for your ArcGIS Server map services, do the following:
  1. Open the source map document in ArcMap.
  2. Right-click the data frame or layer for which you want to add copyright information and click Properties.
  3. Click the General tab and type the copyright information in the Credits text box.
  4. Save the map document and close ArcMap.

  If the map service is already running, you must restart it for the changes to take effect. If you don't want to restart the service manually, it will automatically restart the next time recycling occurs. For more information on recycling, see the ArcGIS Server Help topic "Tuning and configuring services".

  If you prefer not to edit the map document or if the map document is inaccessible to you, you can configure copyright text in Manager by clicking Map Copyright Text on the Map Elements panel or tab. The Label text displays as a link on the map and the Description appears in a popup window when you click the link. If you enter some Label text, you must also enter a Description.

  It's also possible to use Manager to customize the Label text, while allowing the Description to come from the Credits box in the map document. In this scenario, you can leave the Description box blank.

Next topic: Choosing application settings