I’m asking for a favor to everyone who get this (even if you aren’t a GIS programmer). This will help you all in the long run. I want this idea to go to the top of the ideas page!!!
Idea Title : User Assignable Layer Ids for REST Map Services
The link is : http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaView?id=08730000000brPP
You’ll need to create a username and login if you don’t have one already.
Why is this important?
Right now every map service that we create references the layers in the map in numeric order (starting from zero). So in the picture below, to turn on the trails you need to reference layer 18. But what happens if we add a new layer, that for cartographic purposes, needs to go higher? Every layer underneath it then gets shifted down one, and the application that was showing trails now shows Tourist Assistance instead!
This means that as we deploy more and more data, we could be breaking everyone’s applications left and right as we attempt to provide more and better data. Note that the map service I note has 187 layers of information
In the older technology the layer reference could be set by hand – I think it should be referenced by the name of the layer (Trails, for example) but definitely NOT by an ID.


