Stories

What it does

A story is a guided path through a map. Each step can move the camera, choose which layers are visible, and show text about what is on screen.

A step describes a map state: layers, hidden layers, center, zoom, optional transparency, projection, and terrain. Steps are grouped into chapters. There is no click recording and no scripting.

A story is temporary. Camera, layer visibility, opacity, projection, and terrain are captured when the story opens and restored when it closes.

Layers needed by a step are added if the map does not already have them. Those step-only layers are removed again when you leave the step. Layers that were already on the map are hidden and restored, never removed.

Using it

Open the tool, pick a story, and move through the steps. Chapters group them. Close the panel and the map returns to where it was.

In your own map

A story lives in the stories tool section: a name, an optional description and width, and a list of chapters, each with steps. Each step carries html inline or htmlUrl for text kept in a file next to the config. Use htmlUrl when the prose is longer than a config file wants to hold. The URL is resolved relative to the config, so images and links inside it work.

Step content is sanitized before it is shown.

Extending it

The authored step is converted into the same short-key shape a decoded permalink uses, so applying a step is a set of direct adapter calls: viewport, bearing, pitch, visibility, opacity, projection, and terrain. No tool state is involved. Layer visibility and transparency are additionally mirrored into the store so the legend reflects what a step is showing. The camera is not, because the capture-and-restore around the whole story already covers it.

width on a story widens the tool panel while it is open, through the same mechanism any tool can use, and resets when it closes.