Roberts Custom WAB Widgets

Robert Scheitlin, GISP - would you mind if I ask why you prefer to share via forum/.zip file than via GitHub or other open source collaboration services?

RobertScheitlin__GISP · ‎04-09-2015

Tom,

I have been building widgets for Many years now (Flex and now WAB) and I find that not all the audience I cater to has the desire or knowledge to use GitHub. I do have a couple of Github repos but I have only seen limited use from most people in the esri community (not everyone is a developer).

TomWayson · ‎04-09-2015

Robert

I completely understand.

I read your response above that you weren't using GitHub, but I now see that you are and that what you really said is that you are not using Esri's repo for sharing.

It seems that widget authors could have the best of both worlds by publishing their source code to GitHub and then linking to the releases (.zip files) here on the forums. That way the minority of this audience that are developers, as well as other developers that are not on GeoNet, can help contribute to the code, and the portion of this audience that wants to just download the latest .zip file can continue to do that here. Seems like a win-win, but you would know better than I what the reality of that is. I can imagine that having to keep track of issues in two places could be a hassle.

I myself was totally ignorant to how much code was being passed around here on GeoNet until recently, and am coming from the other direction. I'm starting to try and give my GitHub projects a presence here on GeoNet in the hopes that a new audience will find them useful, and I sincerely appreciate the help that you have already been to me as I struggle to figure out how to do even the simplest things in GeoNet.

RebeccaStrauch__GISP · ‎04-09-2015

Tom, for what it's worth, I'm trying to keep up on a list of WAB and custom widgets Web AppBuilder Developer Edition – Customization Resource List

I've link to other repositories on GitHub including gavinr/wab-widget-search · GitHub and Esri/arcgis-webappbuilder-widgets-themes · GitHub

And can link to yours if you have a central location. This list started for me to find my notes and all the links, but it's a good place for others to find things too. If you have a bunch, doing a GeoNet page listing all, like Robert and Larry have done, is helpful both for my list and others. that can then link to your GitHub and/or a zip like other have done.

I agree with robert that not all that customize WAB are heavy duty developers. I'm a good hack and can do some on gitHub, but I spend much more time on GeoNet.

TomWayson · ‎04-09-2015

Thanks Rebecca.

I have already seen, shared, liked, and (now) bookmarked and starred your list. Only thing that I would have to possibly share with it would be the yeoman generator to scaffold new custom widgets/themes. I'm not really building too many widgets these days, and none of the ones I was building for clients before ever got shared.

RebeccaStrauch__GISP · ‎04-09-2015

Tom,

Looks interesting. I'll add it to my doc when I get a chance. It will be something worth trying if I ever get to the point of writing a widget myself. Thanks for sharing.

RobertScheitlin__GISP · ‎04-10-2015

Tom,

I will have to evaluate the extra work involved with maintaining two different places to track issues. In the past I have found that inexperienced GitHub users enter questions about the widget and its use as a issue in GitHub and that was a hassle. I do have experience with GitHub releases so like you said I could use them as my link for the widgets download. Something to think about.

TomWayson · ‎04-10-2015

Great.

Like I said, I'll be exploring these same issues, so let's keep in touch.

I'm starting to create dedicated GeoNet tags for each of the repos that I support. Then I include a CONTRIBUTING.md in my repo, which causes users to see a message with a link to instructions before opening a new issue. In those instructions I include a link that will open new question in GeoNet with that tag. Example:

https://community.esri.com/discussion/create.jspa?containerType=14&containerID=2128&question=true&ta...

I stole this link format from Patrick Arlt's Esri Leaflet repo, which I follow on GitHub, GIS Stack Exchange, and here (yes, we at Esri have to track issues in 3 places). It seems to me like they're still getting support kinds of issues opened on GitHub, but I can tell that since he posted those instructions that more and more questions are being asked in the forums, which, at least in your case, is where the community is that will be able to help them.

BarnabyRockwell · ‎02-04-2015

Hi Robert,

The Street View widget 1.1 is throwing an error in IE11 when you attempt to "Drop" the Google man. Do you get that? Fine in Chrome and FF.

Cheers,

Barnaby