Frequently Asked Questions

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07-28-2019 04:46 PM

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ArcGIS Experience Builder?

ArcGIS Experience Builder provides you with a new way of creating web experiences. You can create unique web apps using flexible layouts, content, and widgets that interact with 2D and 3D data. Start with templates to create mobile-optimized apps quickly, modify template layouts for a custom design on different screen sizes, or build apps from scratch for more creative freedom. ArcGIS Experience Builder requires the Creator user type or higher to create apps and is available in three editions: ArcGIS Online Edition, ArcGIS Enterprise Edition (on the roadmap), and Developer Edition.

What are the key features of ArcGIS Experience Builder?

ArcGIS Experience Builder takes advantage of modern web technologies and enables a wide variety of new capabilities, including

  • Visually create web apps and pages with drag-and-drop. Your choice of
    • mapcentric with multiple maps or nonmapcentric apps
    • on a fixed or scrolling screen
    • on single or multiple pages
  • A mobile-adative design. In addition to being responsive, the same app running in a mobile browser can be configured separately from the desktop.
  • Interact with 2D and 3D content in one app.
  • Add interconnected tools with ready-to-use widgets.
  • Choose from designer-made templates or build your own.
  • A durable URL that contains app state information, so everyone you share the app with can see it in the same state.
  • Dynamic data binding with text and image.
  • Performance optimization.

Will ArcGIS Experience Builder reach the functional parity of Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS?

Starting with the core and popular widgets, Experience Builder is planned to reach most of the functional parity of Web AppBuilder through incremental releases.

Is ArcGIS Experience Builder going to replace Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS?

No. Experience Builder will not replace or obsolete Web AppBuilder. Both builders will be running and maintained in parallel. Web AppBuilder will continue to be available.

Can anything be transferred between Web AppBuilder and Experience Builder?

No. You need to re-configure apps or rewrite custom widgets created with Web AppBuilder if you choose to move them to Experience Builder. 

If I have custom widgets built on Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS, will I be able to use them with ArcGIS Experience Builder?

No. While ArcGIS Experience Builder maintains a very similar programming pattern for building custom widgets, all widgets will need to be rewritten to work within the new framework. This is because ArcGIS Experience Builder is built on ArcGIS API 4.x for JavaScript, whereas Web AppBuilder is built on version 3.x. ArcGIS Experience Builder takes advantage of modern web development technologies, including React and TypeScript, which are part of the new widget development platform.

Can I use ArcGIS Enterprise portal with ArcGIS Experience Builder Developer Edition?

Yes,  Developer Edition is planned to support ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6 and up.

What can only Experience Builder do and what can only Web AppBuilder do?

Flexible layouts, a mobile-adaptive design, integrated 2D and 3D, and action triggers are four key features in Experience Builder that are not available in Web AppBuilder. On the other hand, Web AppBuilder is empowered with 70+ widgets so you can quickly build your own workflow. More specifically:

  1.  Experience Builder provides flexible layouts so you can build apps that are mapcentric or nonmapcentric, display them on a fixed or scrolling screen, and on single or multiple pages, whereas Web AppBuilder enables you to create apps that are mapcentric and displayed on a fixed screen, on a single page.
  2. Experience Builder has been built with a mobile-adaptive design, whereas Web AppBuilder is mobile-friendly.
  3. Experience Builder integrates both 3D and 2D content so you can interact with both within one app, whereas Web AppBuilder separates 2D and 3D content so you cannot apply 2D widgets to a 3D app.
  4. Experience Builder adds action triggers so you can make a widget respond accordingly based on actions the other widget performs, whereas Web AppBuilder does not have this mechanism built in at the framework. For example, when a 2D map is zoomed to an area, you can configure a trigger to make the 3D map zoom to the same area, and vice versa.
  5. Web AppBuilder is empowered with 70+ widgets, whereas Experience Builder currently is not there yet. We plan to rewrite most of the widgets through incremental releases.
Comments

Hi Jianxia,

Thank you for the detailed answers. I thought it will make sense to add my questions as part of this post.

Are there any plans to support import/export of experiences from/to dev' edition?

In the same context of import/export, will it be possible to do it for custom widgets, as shared items in Portal - like WebAppBuilder allows?

Is it possible to have a page as a widget? will it be right to achieve that by embedding the URL of a page in the embed widget URL?

Thanks,

Shay.

Shay,

Thanks for your feedback. Currently we don't have a plan to support importing apps from ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise to dev edition yet. Could you help articulate the importance of this workflow to you? In terms of custom widgets, we do plan to support them in ArcGIS Enterprise, and possibly ArcGIS Online with limited scope. As for the page, you can embed a page with URL or HTML code in the Embed widget.

Thank you, Jianxia. I was asking about that workflow to understand better about the limitations ExB currently has.

I believe many of the clients that start using ExB, will have many expectations for it to be aligned with Web AppBuilder in its features.

Also, different organizations will find this workflow to be very valuable as part of it being a flexible product, integrated with ArcGIS Server.

Shay

Any updates on when we might expect feature parity with Web App Builder?   This article is a year and a half old and it seems like we are in a long term beta program?   Same goes for Dashboards Beta and Map Viewer Beta.

Thanks in advance,

Paul

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