topic Re: Geocoder custom service not working in ArcGIS JavaScript Maps SDK Questions

Geocoder custom service not working

PLadd — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 18:01:07 GMT

I'm having trouble using my own geocoding service and hope someone can set me on the right path.

I've looked at the ESRI sample and at the sample at the bottom of this page but am not able to insert my own geocoder custom service url and name and get it to work.

I ran it through jsfiddle but get no errors. It just does nothing. If it helps, my geocoding service is located here. and name is MeridenGeocoder.

Does my spatial reference matter? My geocoder service is working against a street centerline that is CT stateplane, NAD83 feet (Spatial Reference: 102656 (2234) ). Thanks for your consideration in this matter.

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

JohnGravois — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 13:24:30 GMT

your geocoding service is definitely able to return candidates with web mercator coordinates. i was able to get your locator returning results instead of errors by telling the geocoder object constructor that the name of your single line input parameter field is "Street" instead of "Single Line Input".

var myGeocoders = [{
          url: locatorUrl,
          name: "Meriden",
   //if your locator uses a single line input field name other than 'Single Line Input',
          //tell the widget how to make the appropriate request
          singleLineFieldName: "Street"
}];
geocoder = new Geocoder({
          map: map,
          autocomplete: true,
          arcgisGeocoder: false,
          geocoders: myGeocoders,
          value: "Main St."
},"search");

check out this forum thread for more info.

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

PLadd — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 14:03:30 GMT

Thanks John. With your help, I now see that my customized geocoder was working all along. The real issue is that it's not zooming to the location. So when I enter the address for City Hall, while zoomed out to full extent, nothing would happen. If I zoomed in to some area other than City Hall and then entered it's address, the map would zoom to that location.

Is there a way to get the goecoder to zoom? I see I can do it with this locator sample but that seems to require an awful lot of scripting, which I'm trying to avoid. When I use this geocoder sample, it seems to be zooming. What makes mine different?

Here's what I've got so far:
var gc = [{
                url: "http://gis1.meridenct.gov/arcgis/rest/services/MeridenGeocoder/GeocodeServer",
                name: "MeridenGeocoder",
                singleLineFieldName: "Street"
            }];
            var geocoder = new esri.dijit.Geocoder({
                map: map,
                autoNavigate: true,
                autoComplete: true,
                geocoders: gc,
                geocoderMenu: false,
                arcgisGeocoder: false,
                placeholder: "142 East Main St"
            }, "search");
            geocoder.startup();

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

JohnGravois — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 15:12:24 GMT

our own geocoding service returns an "extent" along with the candidate point geometry. if your own service does not, it would probably be easiest to call map.centerAndZoom() like in this sample.

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

PLadd — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:12:12 GMT

I've been playing in the sandbox with this sample, but I can't seem to make it work on my geocode service.

I changed the locator url to my service but I can't be sure what else I should be changing to make it work. Can you provide some guidance?

locator = new Locator("http://gis1.meridenct.gov/arcgis/rest/services/MeridenGeocoder/GeocodeServer");

Should this
"SingleLine": dom.byId("address").value
be this
"SingleLineFieldName": dom.byId("address").value

And these lines I've tried changing to other values but no luck
outFields: ["Loc_name"]
"Address: ${address}<br />Score: ${score}<br />Source locator: ${locatorName}"

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

JohnGravois — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:16:51 GMT

i wasn't suggesting that you ditch the geocoder widget entirely, just use the same approach demonstrated in the callback of another sample which zooms to a predefined scale level 'manually'.

that being said, you should be able to work with the second sample by mapping the value in the textbox to the actual parameter your own locator is expecting.

"Street": dom.byId("address").value

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

TammyBearly — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 20:19:50 GMT

Our custom geocode service is doing the same thing. It keeps the extent of the map. How can you create a geocode service that would contain the extent?

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

PLadd — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 10:53:52 GMT

I'm working on that now. It's not finished but here's what I've got so far.

I place this line right after geocoder.startup();
geocoder.on("find-results", showResults);

And then I'm able to get the x, y, and extent from the following. There's probably a cleaner way of doing this that a more skilled programmer might want to illustrate for us.

function showResults(results) {

          console.log(results.results.results[0].feature.geometry.x);
          console.log(results.results.results[0].feature.geometry.y);
          console.log(results.results.results[0].extent.xmax); //etc.
          console.log(results.results.results[0].extent.spatialReference.wkid);

The next step is to assign the x, y, and spatial reference to a point and zoom to it with this:
map.centerAndZoom(myPoint, 17);

I will post that when I'm done.

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

PLadd — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 13:24:32 GMT

OK, this is fun!

First, I didn't need to tear apart the results to get x, y, and spatial reference. I simply need to use the geometry of the object itself as follows:

geom = results.results.results[0].feature.geometry;

and then use that as follows:

map.centerAndZoom(geom, 20);

Sadly, however, after all of that searching and coding, I learned that when I use the following for geocoding, I lose the ability to ID the map.

var gc = [{
              url: "http://MyURL/arcgis/rest/services/myGeocoder/GeocoderServer",
              name: "theGeocoder",
              singleLineFieldName: "Street"
          }];
          var geocoder = new esri.dijit.Geocoder({
              map: map,
              autoNavigate: true,
              autoComplete: true,
              geocoders: gc,
              geocoderMenu: false,
              arcgisGeocoder: false,
              placeholder: "142 East Main St"
          }, "search");
          geocoder.startup();

But with the generic code, I can ID the map

geocoder = new esri.dijit.Geocoder({
                  map: map,
                  autocomplete: true,
                  placehoder: "Find a place",
                  //searchExtent: search_extent,
                  arcgisGeocoder: {
                      name: "Esri World Geocoder"
                  }
              }, "search");
              geocoder.startup();

Anybody care to guess why I can't ID the map using this code?

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

PLadd — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 13:24:35 GMT

You can all stop looking for an answer to my latest problem with ID'ing the map. It was caused by a misplaced line of code resulting in this error:

Microsoft JScript runtime error: 'geocoder.inputNode' is null or not an object.

I simply moved geocoder.inputNode.blur(); to below map.centerAndZoom(geom, 20); and now I can ID the map again.

So, in the end, here's how I can zoom to the results of my customized geocode service.

var gc = [{
                      url: "http://MyServer/arcgis/rest/services/MyGeocoder/GeocodeServer",
                      name: "Geocoder",
                      singleLineFieldName: "Street"
                  }];
                  var geocoder = new esri.dijit.Geocoder({
                      map: map,
                      autoNavigate: false,
                      autoComplete: true,
                      geocoders: gc,
                      geocoderMenu: false,
                      arcgisGeocoder: false,
                      placeholder: "142 East Main St"
                  }, "search");
                  geocoder.startup();

                  geocoder.on("find-results", showResults);

function showResults(results) {
          var geom;

          for (var i = 0; i < results.results.results.length; i++) {
              console.debug(results.results.results, " at index ", i);
              geom = results.results.results[0].feature.geometry;
          }

          map.centerAndZoom(geom, 20);
          geocoder.inputNode.blur();
      }

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

JohnGravois — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:18:44 GMT

thanks for taking the time to share how you wired your event handler and passed the result point geometry in a call to map.centerAndZoom(). nice work!

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

TammyBearly — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 13:24:38 GMT

I am still having trouble. If I start with a map scale that shows the state of Colorado, it executes the centerAndZoom call, zooms in, and it is blurry. If I start way zoomed in it keeps this level of zoom. I created a sandbox example at: http://ndis-staging.nrel.colostate.edu/debug/map/geocode2.html. I am using a drop down list with suggestions, so the find-results event does not work. Instead I am using the select event. Is this the correct event to use?

 var myGeocoders = [
     {
          url: "http://ndis-flex.nrel.colostate.edu/ArcGIS/rest/services/AddressLocator_All2/GeocodeServer",
          name: "AddressLocator_All2",
      placeholder: "Search for a Colorado Place...",
      minCharacters: 8,
      singleLineFieldName: "PlaceName",
      outFields: ["*"]
   }];
      geocoder = new esri.dijit.Geocoder({
    autoNavigate: true, // do not zoom to best result
  autoComplete: true,
  showResults: true, // when true, suggestions are displayed as the user is typing
  maxLocations: 20,
  map: map,
  arcgisGeocoder: false,
  geocoders: myGeocoders
      }, "search");
      geocoder.startup();
   
   // When geocoding is complete. this is also run when you highlight the typed in text to erase it.
   geocoder.on("select", function(results) {
  if (results.result)
   map.centerAndZoom(results.result.feature.geometry, 11);
   //map.setExtent(esri.geometry.getExtentForScale(map, "144448"));
   //map.setScale(144448);
   });

Thanks for the help,
Tammy

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

PLadd — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 11:07:41 GMT

I recall having this problem too. By setting autoNavigate to false, I was able to get the map to refresh properly. I also set the zoom scale to 17.

Hope you are staying dry out there in CO.

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

JohnGravois — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 15:26:03 GMT

i just ran a quick test and patrick is right on the money. this makes sense because you are handling the navigation yourself rather than relying on the widget to do it for you.

Re: Geocoder custom service not working

TammyBearly — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 16:13:11 GMT

Yes, that fixed it. Thanks, we are dry:)

I recall having this problem too. By setting autoNavigate to false, I was able to get the map to refresh properly. I also set the zoom scale to 17.

Hope you are staying dry out there in CO.