Sample Javascript Viewer

[ChristianSmith]

Does anyone know if the sample viewer team plans to upgrade, change / modify the JS sample viewer in the near future ?

Thanks

Smitty

[TrevorWeiland]

ESRI seems to be moving away from the sample type viewers and towards the arcgis.com based templates. 

ESRI might be just trying to reach a wider market (ie non-ArcGIS Server customers) or make Web GIS more GIS professional friendly, however, I wouldn't rule out the profit motivation in charging customers for arcgis.com accounts.

[KevinMacLeod1]

ESRI seems to be moving away from the sample type viewers and towards the arcgis.com based templates. 

ESRI might be just trying to reach a wider market (ie non-ArcGIS Server customers) or make Web GIS more GIS professional friendly, however, I wouldn't rule out the profit motivation in charging customers for arcgis.com accounts.

A large customer of ESRI is EOCs (Emergency Operation Centers) and also other specialized applications and users that require functionality where no Internet connection is present.

ArcGIS.com is free (at least for users already registered?) and thus costs them bandwidth.

I have an idea I will just throw out: why can't they give us the code that "runs" ArcGIS.com?

So, in this case, instead of a "webmapid" we just enter the URL to our server. And voila, the Sample Viewer works just like it did, only inside an intranet without an Internet connection. And it will still let us 'build' the site without too much programming... They could give us the code and web source to run a clone of "ArcGIS.com" on our internal network, to "edit" our site (add layers, modify pop-ups, etc). So it would be a complete mirror image of what ArcGIS.com is but all local.

What does everyone think? Anyone from ESRI think this would be possible? Even if it costs money... I think it would have a good bit of interest here. For example, our organization would consider this.

[NianweiLiu]

So it would be a complete mirror image of what ArcGIS.com is but all local.

That product is called "ArcGIS online on premise". Call your Esri rep for more info. Total cost of ownership is a bit high.
I do not think they provide the source code for the viewer though, so the customization would be limited.

[JeffPace]

I believe this is coming with the json representation of a webmap.

[KevinMacLeod1]

I believe this is coming with the json representation of a webmap.

Jeff and all others interested, I had an idea along with some new documentation which appears relevant.

http://www.arcgis.com/apidocs/rest/

The above link documents what appears to be calls to ArcGIS.com or portal? Maybe this will enable use of the Basic Viewer with our own services?

As you and others here noted, calls to ArcGIS.com I guess are JSON, e.g.  ..
http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapi/javascript/arcgis/help/jshelp_start.htm#jshelp/intro_webmap.html

We had discussed using the JavaScript Basic Viewer template without ArcGIS.com (using our own Arc Servers so as to work in an intranet if Internet connectivity is lost)...
http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/44091-Javascript-Template-without-ArcGIS.com-Map-Services

So, Does the Basic Viewer template call ArcGIS.com and look at a specific 'config file'? I use that term loosely, meaning only, that it would seem that while we specify many things locally such as embed (true or false), the logo, links, etc... many settings are stored at ArcGIS.com, such as which layers to load, their scale dependency and transparency, and other settings that are so nicely adjustable via a graphical UI. However, all these are merely referenced by "webmapid" so all this info must be stored in a file on ArcGIS.com. I am still reviewing the threads below and the template code itself, but I wanted to throw it out here in case I'm on the wrong track. But, if I am understanding this correctly, this may allow us to use the Basic Viewer with our own ArcServer REST Services, yet use ArcGIS.com as a "Flex Builder" but for JavaScript. It would be great if we could just download the "configuration" file of our ArcGIS.com WebMap so it would be a drop-in way to create our website, almost as easily as Flex. Or perhaps we can identify these settings via JSON and somehow through this accomplish the same goal?

I hope the links above help others with the same goal. Thanks all for the great support from ESRI folks and the community.

[KellyHutchins]

The basic viewer (and other templates) all use the esri.arcigs.utils.createMap method to build a map based on an input webmap id. The createMap method also accepts an object that represents a webmap - we have a sample here showing this approach:

http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapi/javascript/arcgis/help/jssamples/ags_createwebmapitem.html

So you could create an object in the proper format and pass that in to createMap. In the past its been difficult to recommend this approach because we haven't had documentation for the web map specification. We recently documented this spec here:

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/arcgis-web-map-json/

[NianweiLiu]

We recently documented this spec here:

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/arcgis-web-map-json/

That's very helpful. It looks like it still missing a few items that has been around for a while, for example, pre-defined query. It's quite useful to create focused apps without much coding. I recall seen "query" in some of the JSON returned from arcgis.com, maybe still in beta?
After all, WebADF's XML spec has pre-defined query that can be configed using app manager, and ArcXML has "STOREDQUERY" tag for similar capabilities.

[TrevorWeiland]

@kmacleod - ArcGIS.com for personal use is free, however, for organizational use it is not- nor is it cheap ($17,500 per year for 100 users).

The self-hosted portal concept is interesting but just over the horizon.  Discussing it is difficult as so much of how it will function is yet unknown- will be worth standing up a web server, maintaining the software, and administrating user accounts will be an organizational decision when we are able to evaluate this product.  It will not be costless regardless of what ESRI charges.

I don't know if the self-hosted portal concept is a good substitute for a Sample Viewer.

[KevinMacLeod1]

Trevor that's certainly an important point, thank you for bring this topic up. We are all good ESRI customers and we are looking to work with ESRI to continue to improve the products. However this is of course a good thing to keep track of in general for application development.

For us, we intend to adhere to ESRI Terms and Conditions. I reviewed the Terms and Conditions for Web Mapping at http://www.esri.com/legal/pdfs/e-800-termsofuse.pdf

In our case, we are a municipal entity, and our website will NOT be a for-profit project. Also it will only be accessible via an internal intranet network, and will not exceed the transaction use limit. In fact, we are looking to avoid use of ArcGIS.com for all operational layers and even basemap layers. (We submitted our data to the Community Basemap and we have a good imagery base). We therefore appear to be in compliance with the Terms.

Kelly I am reading the web map documentation.. still trying to comprehend it, and the sample you provided.

I am seeking an easy way to leverage the power of ArcGIS.com's "builder" website, but for our website running on our own server in our intranet. I see ways to achieve the functionality of webmap id with json referencing item id's. However that seems to do the same thing, call ArcGIS.com, right? I guess this is useful to over-ride individual things that were set on ArcGIS.com? Am I missing something? I do not see what the difference between referencing a single webmap id is, and referencing individual item id numbers. It still calls on ArcGIS.com. Thank you again.

[KellyHutchins]

If you define the web map using the JSON spec then it does not make a request to arcgis.com unless you are referencing services from arcgis.com. If you view the source for the sample I sent you'll see that the web map is defined using JSON for example here's the JSON for one of the layers that will make up the map.

{
"isReference": true,
"opacity": 1,
"visibility": true,
"url": "http://services.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/Reference/World_Reference_Overlay/MapServer"
}],
"title": "World_Terrain_Base"
}

I am seeking an easy way to leverage the power of ArcGIS.com's "builder" website, but for our website running on our own server in our intranet. I see ways to achieve the functionality of webmap id with json referencing item id's. However that seems to do the same thing, call ArcGIS.com, right? I guess this is useful to over-ride individual things that were set on ArcGIS.com? Am I missing something? I do not see what the difference between referencing a single webmap id is, and referencing individual item id numbers. It still calls on ArcGIS.com. Thank you again.