When I click on the URL of my mapping application, it takes a good half a minute (or more) from "Website found, waiting for reply" until the load of frames and the map.  How can we speed up that initial "log in" time?  Thank you.

What will the system requirements be for ArcGIS Server 9.3?

How come there is no Hyperlink tool out of the box like there was in ArcIMS... I'm porting an old ArcIMS app to AGS, and I feel it is much more difficult to start developing now than it was for IMS.

Woot for my idea of "Ask the Dev Team" 1. Is there any plans to add an "onResize" event for floating panels? This would be especially helpful if you can access it via javascript. That way you can right some javascript to resize stuff inside or outside of the panel as the panel is being resized. 2. What are some general code tips to speed up drawing and loading times (other than change the symbology)?

I am quite interested in mobile applications that push data back to the geodatabase. Do you have any working prototypes and tutorials to help me build my own using the mobile SDK?

Would it be possible to show an example of how to create an event theme from data stored in a SQL database. I would like to be able to pass a query to SQL table that contains data with an x and y column and then be able to dynamically display this data.

@Kevin who asked about an onResize event for floating panels and web application performance:

Thanks for your question and for the suggestion to do this post. We have seen some great questions already and intend on answering them throughout this week.

To answer your first question, the onResize event for floating panels is an interesting idea that we’ve been considering for 9.3.

As for web application performance, even better than changing your symbology is to create a map cache. The Web ADF map control will attempt to work with the cache in the most efficient way. If you’re not working with a map control, you can request a cache tile programmatically as we explained in a post last month on this blog.

You should cache your maps whenever it’s feasible. See the Map Caches book in the Web Help (http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisserver/9.2/dotNet/index.htm#manager/publishing/static_map_svcs.htm) and many posts on this blog for help with caching.

Other guidelines for creating efficient Web applications are contained in "Guidelines for creating your own Web applications" (http://edndoc.esri.com/arcobjects/9.2/NET_Server_Doc/developer/ADF/guidelines.htm) and "Performance tips for Web applications" (http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisserver/9.2/dotNet/manager/applications/web_app_performance.htm).

@Steve who asked about a document of library changes:

There will be a migration section in the Server SDK for Web ADF applications. It will contain a few topics including a What’s New page which will highlight a few key differences\enhancements when moving from 9.2 to 9.3.

We're researching a few options for including a comprehensive developer level doc on the changes between 9.2 and 9.3 assemblies. If available, it will be included with 9.3 final.

I'm always needing to place mapping controls (Map, Toolbar, MapResourceManger, etc) within a user control or within some other control (i.e., Infragistics tab control). I have not yet been successful in accomplishing this. I have read the posts about changing the javascript files to handle the changed names of the map controls, but that isn't really an option. Any suggestions?

@tesladaman who asked about initial startup time for web applications and also @Kevin who asked about web application performance:

The Web Mapping Application does come with some overhead on startup because of graphics, javascript, map images, etc. that need to be transferred to the client machine. The startup time can vary based on connection speed and also how your map, services, and application are configured:

-The table of contents may take some time to load all of the swatches, especially if you have many layers and sublayers in your map. If you think this is part of the problem you can configure the TOC to not show swatches, remove the TOC, or remove layers from your map.

-The map control itself takes some time to load the map images. The more services you are viewing in the map control, the longer it will take. If you have many services, consider checking some of them off on startup and allowing your users to add them as needed. Caching your services will help them load much faster. Also, browser tier blending is usually recommended as opposed to web tier blending.

-Make sure that service instances are readily available for your application to use. Avoid setting the Minimum Number of Instances for your map services at 0. This might cause the server to have to create an instance when you load the application.

-Finally, if you don’t need all of the functionality in the Web Mapping Application template you might get better performance by creating your own scaled-down version. You could do this by creating an application from the template and manually removing items, or by creating an application from scratch using the ArcGIS Web Controls in the Visual Studio Toolbox. If you do the latter you will avoid some of the overhead of the “dynamic resize” of the map control to fit the screen that occurs in the Web Mapping Application.

See also the topics “Guidelines for creating your own Web applications” (http://edndoc.esri.com/arcobjects/9.2/NET_Server_Doc/developer/ADF/guidelines.htm) and “Performance tips for Web applications” (http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisserver/9.2/dotNet/manager/applications/web_app_performance.htm).

Thanks to Bob Flores and Derek Weatherbe who contributed to this answer.

@Tim who asked about serving anti-aliased maps:

ArcGIS Server map services are based off of ArcMap documents. There isn't a way to apply anti-aliasing to layers in ArcMap. However you can apply anti-aliasing to your map service if you create a map cache for it. The Generate Map Server Cache tool has a checkbox for anti-aliasing. If you check this box, it will take longer for the cache tiles to get created, but the tiles will look nicer.

If your intent is to use anti-aliasing so that the map looks better when printed, you may be able to achieve better map quality by requesting a high DPI for your map image before you print it. This is what’s Bryan Baker’s Print Task Sample does to generate a high-quality map for printing. (http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/arcgisserver/archive/2007/05/16/Print-Task-Sample.aspx) When you choose a high DPI in this Print task, a larger image is returned that is then fit to the original dimensions you requested.

Hi all, Here are some questions I have been wondering about. Hopefully, you can find the time to respond to them 1) Will the ArcGIS Server cache support TMS (Tile Mapping specification http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Tile_Map_Service_Specification)? 2) Will the javascript library have an Object Oriented design with accompanying model diagram and documentation? More extensive javascript events for better customization? 3) Will a client-side vector layer (SVG) be available? 4) I hear that 9.3 is built on the Dojo framework. Would frameworks like ExtJS be supported in the future or will the framework be designed so that Dojo can be replaced with other frameworks like ExtJS or JQuery etc painlessly? Thank You, Vish http://viswaug.wordpress.com

The development of mobile application bases on mobile adf is my interesting. The mobile adf is a very great develop kit, thanks so much for you to delivery it. However, I can't find APIs that help me to displaying data from shape files. Are you going to add more APIs for it? Thanks.

Hi,

I need help on beginning ArcGIS Server programming.

Is it possible to get a full sample web adf app AGS 9.2 that demonstrates how to create a graphic polygon in the web app and use it to select all point features in a feature class that are within the bounds of the graphic?

Thanks.

@tbcrain who asked about Web ADF controls within user controls and other controls:

In general, 9.2 Web ADF controls are supported for use within User controls and custom composite Web controls.

There’s a difference between adding the user or composite control at design-time or run-time.  If you add one user or composite control to a page at design-time, everything should function without an issue. If added at run-time, you need to create a composite control because a couple of Web ADF characteristics need to be managed explicitly.  Two issues are listed below:

1) In a custom composite control, Web ADF controls are added dynamically.  During a request to a page, the page and its controls (including the composite control) iterate through their lifecycle.  This becomes important when dealing with resources added to a resource manager.   Once added, they are maintained in state and retrieved when the resource manager is recreated during the control lifecycle.   So as not to keep re-adding resources every time the resource manager is created during the composite control lifecycle, you need to check session state for the presence of the resource items.  If present, do not re-add the resources.  

2) A set of HTML hidden input elements (fields) are injected in the page at runtime if a Web ADF control is present.   These fields store information such as the current tool, map mode, and screen coordinates associated with tool interaction in the map.   One field, ESRIWebADFHiddenFields, stores a list of all the other field names.  This list is used to include the other field values in a callback request.  If the Web ADF controls are added after the initial request to the page (such as adding a composite control during a full postback to the page), the ESRIWebADFHiddenFields value is empty.  As a result, tool interaction with the map is not functional.   To workaround this issue, you need to manually set the value of the ESRIWebADFHiddenFields element.   Note, this will only affect composite controls added after initial page load.  If a composite control is added during initial page load (e.g. design-time), these fields will be set correctly.   Adding more than one composite control with a Web ADF Map and Toolbar at runtime will likely cause conflicts and render some tool interaction with the map non-functional.   There is no easy way to overcome this at the moment.  As a result, it is best to add only one composite control with a Map-Toolbar per page at runtime.

If you use two or more user or composite controls that contain Web ADF controls, then you also need to be aware of an issue relating to using the ID of a control as a buddy control. If you add the same user control multiple times to the same page, the ID of the buddy-control is not unique anymore. The workaround is to programmatically change the ID of the controls that rely on being buddied during the OnInit of the UserControl’s code-behind, by prefixing the ID’s with the ID of the UserControl (which should be unique).

Example for Map, MapResourceManager and Toolbar:

public partial class MyWebUserControl : System.Web.UI.UserControl

{

   protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)

   {

       Map1.ID = this.ID + "Map";

       MapResourceManager1.ID = this.ID + "MapResourceManager";

       Toolbar1.ID = this.ID + "Toolbar";

       Toolbar1.Group = this.ID + "Group";

       Map1.MapResourceManager = MapResourceManager1.ID;

       Toolbar1.BuddyControls[0].Name = Map1.ID;

       base.OnInit(e);

   }

}

This fix does have potential problems (changing the ID’s can cause other problems as well), and you might consider using CustomControls instead, where you create the controls programmatically and prefix the ID’s during page creation. In 9.3 you’ll be able to use the UniqueID of the control as Buddy ID as well. This will simplify this fix so you don’t have to rename the IDs.

@josh5000 who asked about selecting point features based on a polygon drawn on the map:

One workflow for this is:

1. Create a custom tool whose client action is Polygon

2. Create a class for the server action (See this link if you need help: http://edndoc.esri.com/arcobjects/9.2/NET_Server_Doc/developer/ADF/custom_tools_commands.htm)

3. In this class, capture the polygon that the user draws as an ADF polygon (ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Web.Geometry.Polygon)

4. Create a spatial filter based on the polygon (ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Web.Geometry.SpatialFilter)

5. Use IQueryFunctionality.Query to query your layer based on the spatial filter. You’ll get back a DataTable of items. (See this link for help: http://edndoc.esri.com/arcobjects/9.2/NET_Server_Doc/developer/ADF/resource_map.htm#queryfunc)

6. Optionally, add the data table as a graphics layer to the TaskResults, which will then display the features on the map (as long as the map is buddied to the TaskResults).

If you want to see some example code for spatial queries in the Web ADF, we recommend that you download and examine Bryan Baker’s “SelectToolTask” on ArcScripts (http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=15133)

@Yvonne who asked about shapefiles in mobile apps:

There are 2 ways that you can leverage data from a Shapefile with the Mobile ADF:

1. You can add the shapefile as a layer in the map document that you publish as a map service with mobile data access capabilities. Then when you request data from the service, the shapefile data will be cached on the mobile client device and drawn on your map. In addition, once you publish the map service, you can create a cache up front that can be deployed to the mobile device.

2. With the client APIs you can create a custom layer that consumes data directly from a shapefile or any other data source and then add that layer onto the map.

Today we do not have a specific API or published sample that reads from a shapefile. We have no plans today to include a specific API for reading a shapefile. We could create a sample to accomplish this if needed.

What are the top ten things you can do to improve the performance of a Web-application that serves up an address locater service along with a many-layered MXD with a dozen or so Mr. Sid image layers?

Hi,I'm currently building a web map application for my customer using ArcGIS Server 9.2. One of the requirement is to achieve transparency settings for each layer, and 9.2 can do this by providing Transparencies for each layer in MapResource Manager. While the transparency can only take effect when the ImageBlendingMode property for Map WebControl is set to WebTier. Would it possible to achieve the same effect when ImageBlendingMode is set to Brower. PS: I have dozens layers in my application so I choose Browser mode to dispaly the map for a more acceptable performance. TIA for your reply.

We have a rather fast server that is running Arc GIS Server, ArcIMS, and ArcSDE. In the past we were told to keep ArcIMS and ArcSDE on separate boxes. Starting with 9.1 or 9.2, we were told that we should place ArcIMS and ArcSDE on the same box. We are starting to have issues with ArcSDE now getting overloaded with connections - probably from ArcGIS Server. It this configuration advisable? If not, which components should be on its own server?

@Alper who asked about performance of MSSQL vs. Oracle with ArcSDE:

ESRI is prohibited by the DBMS vendors from providing performance information that involves their products. However, all of the DBMS vendors provide benchmark comparisons on their own web sites. We believe that either SQL Server or Oracle will offer very good performance with our products on a Windows server.

Other factors to consider in selecting a DBMS are do you have a DBA that's trained with one databases being considered, are there differences in what is required to administer one DBMS over another, do you have requirements for high availability, are there differences in licensing for virtual server environments, and so on.

@Rex and sterlingdq: thanks for your answers. I have not been able to have Tom's script work properly. I'll give a shot to the EDN example soon.

Hello all,

First time reply to your posting while I have been enjoying your Blog all the time... Many thanks!

One question that I have is about the limitations that ArcGIS Server 9.2 might have. Has anybody done any testing on the number of map service instances that one server can have? I am experiencing failures on map service instance creation when the total number of instances reaches somewhere around 85 to 100. I have thought that I should be able to create enough number of map service instance for my whole county users (Harris County) when I have a good server (quad-core, hyper-threaded) and enough memory (12 gigs). But it turns out to be that adding more hardware support is almost useless as it stops creating service instance at a certain point... I have tested this on two different machines and am getting similar results. I have Advanced Enterprise license by the way. Any thoughts?

Your sharing of experiences and ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Wanjoo (wanjoo.choi@idea.com)

@LiangWei who asked about transparency: At 92 it is a known limitation that a cached resource cannot be displayed with a transparency percentage when using ImageBlendMode = Browser. As you are aware, using WebTier mode is the work around to have the transparency applied correctly.

If you are not using cached services, please elaborate on your scenario by describing the services you are blending and the type of browser you are viewing the application in. Since this thread is now closed for comments, you can e-mail us through the blog's e-mail feature.

@Vish Uma who had these four questions:

Q: Will the ArcGIS Server cache support TMS (Tile Mapping specification http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Tile_Map_Service_Specification)?

A: No, ArcGIS map caching doesn't support the Tile Mapping specification.

 

Q: Will the javascript library have an Object Oriented design with accompanying model diagram and documentation? More extensive javascript events for better customization?

A: Yes, plan to check out the 9.3 SDK for more details.

 

Q: Will a client-side vector layer (SVG) be available?

A: Yes. The ArcGIS JavaScript API does support client-side vector (graphics) layers. It is implemented as SVG for Firefox and VML in Internet Explorer.

 

Q: I hear that 9.3 is built on the Dojo framework. Would frameworks like ExtJS be supported in the future or will the framework be designed so that Dojo can be replaced with other frameworks like ExtJS or JQuery etc painlessly?

A: The new ArcGIS JavaScript API is built on the Dojo toolkit. The API was built with recommended JavaScript practices in mind such that there is no conflict with other frameworks such as ExtJS, jQuery, YUI, etc.

@Guillermo Munoz who asked about an "Add layers" button: You can look at Morten’s blog post on how to add a resource to a map (http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/arcgisserver/archive/2008/02/22/Creating-a-utility-library-_2800_Part-II_29003A00_-Creating-and-adding-resources.aspx) when you know which service you are planning to add.

The next task is to create a dialog that captures the input parameters that go into the resource definition string. For example, for ArcGIS Server Internet, you would need to create a dialog that captures the following information. The easiest way to create a dialog is by creating a user control.

1)The name of the server. This would be a text box

2)Identity if your application requires it. Username and password text boxes

3)A dropdown list for selecting the map service. To do this:

a. Create an ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.ArcGISServer.Catalog object with the information in (1) and (2).

b. Call Catalog.GetServiceDescriptions() to get a list of the services on the server.

c. Add services of type “MapServer” to the dropdown list

4)A dropdown list for selecting the dataframe. This is optional. You can use (default) to get the default data frame

a. Once the user selects the map service, call ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Web.DataSources.ArcGISServer.GISDataSourceInternet.GetResourceUrl to get the url to the map service

b. Using this url, call call ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Web.DataSources.ArcGISServer.MapResourceInternet.GetDataFrames to get a list of data frames to add to the dropdown list.

5)An OK button that will use the captured information to add the resource to the map as explained in Morten’s blog post. Next you can add a button to your application that will bring up your ‘Add Layers’ user control and off you go.

@wanjoo123 who asked about failures when using large numbers of service instances:

Thank you for your question. We recommend that you contact Technical Support or your ESRI Representative about this issue. They can get all of the details about your system and help troubleshoot your specific scenario.

@sgourley who asked: "Are you planning on making web adf objects serializable for transportation through SOAP? And what does this mean for 9.3 that the javascript api's will be hosted by esri?  Does this remove the option for developers to customize?"

Answer:

First, an answer to the question regarding are the Web ADF objects serializable. Yes, you can use SoapFormatter to serialize/deserialize Web ADF objects to/from SOAP. Let us know if you need more details (using the e-mail feature on this blog).

Second, you asked about the new client-side ArcGIS JavaScript APIs that will be hosted by ESRI. Our hosting the APIs does in a sense mean you developer can’t customize them. It’s possible to "override" anything in the JavaScript by declaring your own variable with the same name, but there is considerable work there as you'd have to reproduce the existing code and then modify it, rather than just extending it per se. We'll be talking more about the ArcGIS JavaScript APIs at the Developers Summit. If you are able to attend, be sure to check out the Building Mashups Using the ArcGIS JavaScript APIs session. We also have sessions on developing with the Web ADF: Building .NET Applications Using the ArcGIS Server Web ADF and ASP.NET AJAX and Building and Extending Tasks for ArcGIS Server .NET Web Applications.