topic Flex 2.4 Local KML file in ArcGIS API for Flex Questions

Flex 2.4 Local KML file

PatrickTruitt — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:18:43 GMT

I was hoping someone could shed some light on the needed steps to get a local KML to display on the map. I can get public KML files to load fine but I'm looking for a way to allow the user to display KML files that they may have on there local machine. Is the utility that ESRI uses to parse the public kml/kmz files available for other ArcGIS servers?

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

erdinç_kadiryildiz — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 20:16:30 GMT

I was also thinking about this situation.An easier way is to create a directory in your server where you published your flex application.Just upload that kml file to your server. This directory must be published on IIS.So that you can add that kml file as a kmllayer to your application like http://youserverip/thedirectory/xyz.kml. You can do this for kml files. But in flex you cannot access local directories because of security restrictions. You need to write a webservice or something like that to manage it. For kmz files,you can use also your webservice to extract the kml file from the kmz file to this directory.So that you can reach that kml file as a kmllayer.

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

PatrickTruitt — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 11:14:12 GMT

There is something else going on here behind the scenes. I'm working on my local development environment. I have setup a local server, opened it up via a crossdomain file and put the kml file on it. (http://localhost/kml/kmlfile.kml). When I run my flex app it will not bring that kml file in as a layer. Is there something I'm missing here? Is it because my flex app is running from my file system vs the same server? I thought the crossdomain file would fix this access issue. Captain clueless here.

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

BjornSvensson — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:23:02 GMT

"The KMLLayer is used to create a layer based on a publicly accessible KML file (.kml,.kmz)."
http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapi/flex/apiref/com/esri/ags/layers/KMLLayer.html

Thus, localhost and KMLs sitting on internal networks will not work. The KML needs to be publicly accessible.

What's happening behind the scenes is that we use a utility "converter" service to convert the KML to ArcGIS REST-like features. The same service is used by both Flex and Javascript Web APIs.

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

PatrickTruitt — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:41:08 GMT

I maybe working with some sensitive kml data so my question to ESRI is, could this "converter" be available to customers to live behind their firewall?

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

BjornSvensson — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:54:09 GMT

...could this "converter" be available to customers to live behind their firewall?

Yes, it will be part of the ArcGIS Portal.

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

PatrickTruitt — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:57:46 GMT

I'm guessing it's not apart of GeoPortal at this current date?

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

BjornSvensson — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 23:40:10 GMT

Correct.

GeoPortal is different from ArcGIS Portal. This will be part of ArcGIS Portal.

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

PatrickTruitt — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:53:55 GMT

Thank you. Any ETA on ArcGIS Portal?

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

PatrickTruitt — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:38:51 GMT

Do I really need the whole ArcGIS Portal Package just to have access to the utility that parses kml/kmz files? Our customer does not want their kml/kmz data out on a public server. Could just the utility be made available? Can someone please explain to me why this capability is limited to only public URL's but all other layer types can be internal?

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

dcopple — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:00:57 GMT

Try right clicking in your viewer and change flash player global settings, under the advaced tab, add you site to the trusted sites list. This allows flash to access a file on your local drive. At least try it and see if that works. See picture.....

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

IanWatkins — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 07:39:00 GMT

I would agree, it's a real shame that the Flex API cannot deal with the KML/KMZ directly without having to use an external call.

I'm also in the same situation where I have sensitive information that cannot be used externally. In fact, the whole reason we went with the ESRI Flex API was that it didn't require internet access like the Google API does.

Yes, we could use ArcGIS Portal, but do we really want all that on the server just to deal with KML? I doubt that would fly. No all our Flex apps use an ArcGIS backend, in fact many use very lightweight webservers/webservices.

So could the developers on the API please consider this decision?

Cheers

Ian

Re: Flex 2.4 Local KML file

dcopple — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:35:40 GMT

I have written a KML widget, and posted the compiled swf and xml at the following site:
http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=3f7a1efe5f3c4aa9bdecf59730231ffb
Still has to load a posted kml. If you don't have a server for a kml, you can post it to Google sites, or a number of other places that allow you to post a free file. If it is local, I think you could post the kml on your local server. As long as it has an http:// url that is a valid url it should load. Hope this helps someone. KML is fully supported with the Flex Viewer yet, but hope it will support more complex KML in the future.