MobileMap: Settings Configurations

As of the official release of MobileMap 5.0.0, settings are handled slightly differently - especially when importing settings. Settings files and settings included in a Feature Service description will still work, but these will now need to be explicitly “applied”. To demonstrate this change, let’s discuss this difference in two common use cases prior to MobileMap 5.0.0:

Geodatabase generated successfully, then the “Import Settings” screen displays the settings provided from the description of the downloaded Feature Service (if provided)
Settings file selected from within the “Import Settings” screen.

^In both of these cases, once you hit the “Import” button on the “Import Settings” screen, the selected settings values will then be applied.

Now let’s talk about how these two scenarios look with the new functionality:

Geodatabase generated successfully, then the “Select Settings Configuration To Apply” screen displays the settings configuration(s) provided from the description of the downloaded Feature Service (if provided)
Settings file selected from within the “Manage Settings” screen.

^In the first case, when the available settings configuration is selected it would then be applied. In the second case, the user would then need to back out of the “Manage Settings” screen and navigate to the “Select Settings Configuration” screen to then select that settings configuration to apply it.

Here are some screenshots that demonstrate these differences:

^Old “Select An Action” screen (“Export Settings” and “Import Settings” buttons removed)

^New “Select An Action” screen (“Select Settings Configuration” and “Manage Settings” buttons added)

^This is the new “Manage Settings” screen. This screen allows you to import a Settings Configuration file, restore default settings, export settings and also view the currently imported settings configurations. Previously, restoring the default settings and importing a settings file was performed on the “Import Settings” screen (which is now replaced).

^This is the new “Settings Configuration” screen which displays the details for a Settings Configuration. You can navigate to this screen by selecting a Setting Configuration that is listed on the “Manage Settings” screen. This screen does provide an option for deleting the Setting Configuration if it came from a Settings Configuration file. Settings Configurations that were included as part of the currently downloaded Geodatabase are disabled for deletion.

^This is the new “Select Settings Configuration” screen. This screen displays a list of available Settings Configurations that the user can apply. When a Settings Configuration is applied, visual indication is provided to verify this.

newViewInBottomRightCornerDisplayingMostRecentlyAppliedSettingsConfiguration_edited.png

^This is the new view displayed in the bottom right corner of the map. This displays the label for the most recently applied settings configuration.

^This is the “Import Settings” screen that has been replaced.

Let’s watch this comparison in action. Here is a video walkthrough of the previous way of importing and applying settings:

screenRecordingOfOldWayOfPerformingTheTwoImportSettingsMethods.mp4

Now, here is a video walkthrough of the NEW way of importing and applying settings:

Part 1 (importing from the Feature Service description):

newWayOfImportingAndApplyingSettingsPart1.mp4

Part 2 (importing from a Settings Configuration file):

newWayOfImportingAndApplyingSettingsPart2.mp4

You might have some more questions: What is a settings configuration? What is the difference between a settings file and a settings configuration file? What happened to the “Import Settings” and “Export Settings” buttons on the “Select An Action” screen? The answers to these questions are listed below.

Question: What is a “settings configuration”?

Answer: First, a “settings configuration” is a new concept. A “settings configuration” is a collection of MobileMap settings values. Previously, we only supported one “settings configuration” per settings file or feature service description. Now, we support the ability to have more than one “settings configuration” per settings file or Feature Service description. This means that instead of switching between multiple settings files, these settings files can all be combined into one settings file. This settings file would just have multiple “settings configurations”, one for each of the files that were previously separate. This would require using our new JSON format to take advantage of this new functionality, but the previous format will still work as well (i.e. all settings file and Feature Service descriptions that worked previously will still work).

Question: What is the difference between a settings file and a settings configuration file?

Answer: They are the same thing, there is no difference. This is a terminology change. What was previously considered a “settings file” is now considered a “settings configuration file”. Files that use the original format by having one settings configuration are still a settings configuration file - they just have only one settings configuration. Files that utilize the new format can have one or more settings configurations, so they are also considered a settings configuration file.

Question: What happened to the “Import Settings” and “Export Settings” buttons on the “Select An Action” screen?

Answer: Both of these buttons are now gone. Two new buttons have been added: “Select Settings Configuration” and “Manage Settings”. The “Manage Settings” screen now includes the functionality for importing a settings configuration file or exporting settings.

Question: Why make this change? What is the advantage of it?

Answer: There are multiple advantages to this change. One advantage is that multiple settings configuration files can be combined into one. These settings configurations can then be easily selected from the “Select Settings Configuration” screen when switching. Another advantage is that once a settings configuration file is imported, it doesn’t have to be imported again. This means that the user doesn’t have to navigate through the file manager each time they want to apply a specific settings configuration. Another advantage is simplifying the common workflow of selecting a settings configuration. Now, the user can just go to the “Select Settings Configuration” screen and just select from a list which one they want to apply. The less commonly used “Manage Settings” screen will only be accessed when importing the necessary settings configuration files (among other less common actions such as restoring default settings and exporting current settings). Other advantages include knowing which settings configuration was most recently applied and also the settings configuration metadata features which we will talk about later.

Question: What does the new settings configuration file format look like?

Answer: Below is a comparison to the old settings configuration file format and the new settings configuration file format. The new settings configuration file format utilizes brackets ('[', ']') to differentiate as the new format. The new settings configuration file format also includes a “metadata” section that includes “label”, “version”, “lastUpdatedDate”, and “author”. See the examples listed below.

Example original settings configuration file format:

Timber_SettingsFileJohnDoe_1_3.txt:

"general_settings": {
    "autoOpenTreeList": "false",
    "autoUpdateCruiserIdWhenCruised": "true"
  }

Inventory_SettingsFileJaneDoe_1_3.txt:

"general_settings": {
    "autoOpenTreeList": "false",
    "autoUpdateCruiserIdWhenCruised": "true"
  }

Example new settings configuration file format:

Timber_Organization_Settings_ConfigurationFile_1_3.txt:

[{
  "metadata": {
      "label":"Timber",
      "version":"1.3",
      "lastUpdateDate":"5-15-2025",
      "author":"John Doe"
  },
  "general_settings": {
    "autoOpenTreeList": "false",
    "autoUpdateCruiserIdWhenCruised": "true"
  }
},
{
  "metadata": {
      "label":"Inventory",
      "version":"1.3",
      "lastUpdateDate":"5-18-2025",
      "author":"Jane Doe"
  },
  "general_settings": {
    "autoOpenTreeList": "true",
    "autoUpdateCruiserIdWhenCruised": "false"
  }
}]