topic Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500 in ArcGIS for Windows Mobile Questions

Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

BillSchroeder — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 15:02:33 GMT

First off, I typed "add custom icons to arcexplorer" in search and found nothing, so if there's other threads on this topic, please forgive me.

Second, what a great tool for people to use! Thank you ESRI!

Now down to the bones.

I've created custom icons 64 x 64 with transparent backgrounds, saved as "name of image".png and have no problem loading them one at a time to maps.

I can set them up on an offline tablet (surface pro 2), send a crew out with the tablet in airplane mode, and they can use landmarks to put a fire hydrant icon smack dab as close as most gps units can place it. They can comment on it, then create a folder for this new placemark, share the folder as either a layer package or a kmz file, put it on a thumbdrive, and voila, I can bring it up on my ArcMap, and use it to update my information, and have the icon as close as it can be until our engineering department goes out and shoots the exact spot with their gps unit.

This is working great for us! We don't have to spend money on 4g or anything for the tablets we use in the field, which means we can afford to pursue this on a large scale. Thanks for this great tool, ESRI!

But, My problem is, the custom icons are only custom for the map.nmf they are physically associated with. (with which they are associated, or whatever) No problem here. they work great! But I want them to be available specific to the program, not the map.

How can I make the custom icons available to all maps? Or can I?

Before answering, I am running build ArcMap 10.2.1.3497 and have no extra modules, etc whatever added, and want to know how to get these in explorer desktop USING explorer desktop. I say this because in searching google, I saw what looked like a way to use ArcMap's capabilities to create new styles or something, and my setup was not at all like what was mentioned in the thread I was looking at.

So, can I take the custom icons I've added to ArcExplorer Desktop 2500 on a windows surface pro 2 and make them available for each and every new map I might want to create on my surface pro without having to add each ... icon ... one ... at ... a ... time?

We want our guys in the field to be able to use this new tool to its fullest capability. Besides, there's hydrant, valve, water tank, etc etc etc icons for explorer, and I've yet to find add on icons anywhere.

Also, I've seen where you can write a script to give folders custom icons, but this has nothing to do with that.

Then there's also another problem: anything added to a custom icon, once placed, as far as comments seems lost when the icon is moved to arcmap. I try to look at any information (hydrant number, pressure, flow, was it 10 feet from the black dog or the oak tree, etc etc etc) is nowhere to be found. Can this be remedied in future builds? I've tried it in lpk and kmz files, and can't find any information. If these would carry over any comments made, it would be super helpful, thank you.

Thank you all, I hope I've explained adequately what I am trying to accomplish and am posting this in the right place.

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

MarkBockenhauer — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 20:11:01 GMT

Bill,

Yes you can, but it will require updating files in the install folder on each computer.

In the Explorer (x86)\Styles folder, add your icon as a .PNG image to the SymbolImages folder. (Explorer uses 64x64 for image size, if you use larger images and lots of them, the gallery will be slower to load.)

for Example I will add this image "happy.png" for use as a symbol.

Save the image in the SymbolImages folder. In this case will put it in the "Health" folder.

Now I am working with English language, so I will update the ExplorerSymbols.xml file to reference the image in the Symbolimages\Health folder.

<Symbol SymbolType="Marker" Name="happy" Category="Health" Id="happyMarker" Size="25">
      <SymbolSource Type="Image" Location="Install" Path="SymbolImages\Health\happy.png" />
</Symbol>

The File contains information for each symbol. In the above example, I Named the Symbol happy and placed it in the Health category. You must give it a unique ID as well as updating the Path to the symbol. (Note: the path does not support using a URL)

For the second part of your question. When an Explorer user creates a layer package from a note. The note title is put in a Title Field and the body of the note is put in a Popup field.

When you open in ArcMap it is represented as:

You users can use the Note Title to convey some information, and it is just a string in the field. In the body case, some style is included to account for HTML that may have been in the body of the note. In your case it is straight text. to make it a little easier to deal with, you could add a new field and calculate it equal to the popup field, and use some vbscript or python to strip out the style information.

Here is an example using vbscript.

k = InStr( [Popup], "</style>" )
l = k + 7 
totallength = Len( [Popup] )
bodycount = totallength - l
bodytext = Right( [Popup], bodycount )

Mark

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

BillSchroeder — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 20:15:57 GMT

Thank you, Mark. I was certain there would be a way. I don't mind having to do it for each tablet, I'll just set up my standard set of custom icons, and a custom .xml file and keep it to use on all the tablets we'll be setting up.

Great job with concise information. I really appreciate that!

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

BillSchroeder — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 14:42:01 GMT

Aw heck yeah, it's even better than that.

I added a folder called Water and Sewer to SymbolImages, and put a green hydrant image in it and edited the .xml file like this:

</Symbol>

and put it all in my tablet, and voila, the new directory is in the program with the green hydrant right there where it's supposed to be.

Now I can get all my custom icons in there!

We've been using this tablet as a test and it is passing everything I can throw at it, now we've ordered another one and I'm going to set it up for one of our guys to take out in the field and use it.

This is great, now I can set up separate tablets for out pumps and tank guys, sewer guys, water guys, etc and they will all have exactly what icons they need for each situation.

As far as notation of new placemarks, it's sad that the information doesn't just carry over from explorer to arcmap without any extra work. Nothing that was entered in the pop up field at all makes it to arcmap.

All I see in popup when I extract .dbf from attributes is this:

and yes, it just stops at ~; f after h5 on both. huh.

I'll play around with it, though, but that's a lot of stuff to deal with.

I wonder if there's any chance in version 2500 x there'll be a straight forward notation field that will remain intact when shared via lpk or kmz? sure would be nice.

anyway, you rock, thanks a ton!

*edit,

Of course when people bring the tablets in, I'll be collecting the layers they've placed on thumb drives, so it won't be a problem to have explorer open in one monitor and arcmap in another and look at the information in the pop up while I'm editing, if I ever have to, but I do hope someone with ESRI sees the need to have that field go into an attribute field named notes, perhaps with text format at perhaps 150 characters or something... or maybe have it customizable itself... for like text notes of x amount of characters, or numerical data, floating integers, etc, just like attributes for shapefiles are in arcmap. Sure would be useful if it worked that way in some future iteration...

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

MarkBockenhauer — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 19:52:38 GMT

Bill,

The popup field in the layer package has a length of 262144 so it should be more than enough to hold the contents of the note. The note body only supports 32,608 typed characters.

Using ArcGIS Explorer I create a note add 32,608 characters, create a layer package and the resulting file geodatabase contains a Popup field with all 32,608 characters, plus the style tags.

I am not sure why your result is truncated.

I even tried creating a KML out of the note and using KML to layer, and viewing that in ArcMap showed all of the information as well.

I notice that your string is truncated at 255 characters. Are you exporting to a shapefile? if you are that would be the reason. Shapefiles have a field length limit.

Mark

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

BillSchroeder — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 11:51:40 GMT

(allow me to preface all of this with "I'm taking the lpk file and opening it in ArcMap", the information is intact when migrating from one place to another opening it up in explorer)

I click Point, click where I want it to be, change word note to whatever reference I want, Hydrant R3-999, etc, then type in some description in the pop up field of whatever needs to be in there, maybe gpm static pressure, etc or anything else, then click okay. This leaves the dialogue up on screen.At this point, I can now (thank you) click on the pin and edit it to show one of my new icons.

Now I go to contents, right click on my new layer, and click share. I'm presented with map content, which only opens in arc explorer from all I can tell, Layer Package or KML (which is actually a KMZ file, but we won't quibble).

I have saved as each, and not gotten the map content to work in arc map, so that's a no go, but the other two - well you see above what happens.

As far as uploading maps, we'll stick with migrating them to tablets locally. Using shp files or even gdb files causes the maps to be stuck using only Explorer's symbols and styles, and this is not acceptable for the vast amount of information we're dealing with.

but I got custom icons!!!! woo hoo!!!

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

MarkBockenhauer — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 16:10:24 GMT

Just repeating what you wrote.

Create note.

Share as Layer Package and Add the Package back into ArcGIS Explorer.

Can you repeat the same?

And re-confirm that you are using ArcGIS Explorer 2500 or 2505?

Mark

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

BillSchroeder — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 16:12:16 GMT

The problem is, I'm taking these and putting them on ArcMap and that is what is truncating the notes, etc.

they're fine on other devices running explorer.

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

MarkBockenhauer — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 16:14:40 GMT

what version of ArcMap are you using?

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

MarkBockenhauer — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 16:19:42 GMT

just re-read, see that it is 10.2.1. I will research it...

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

BillSchroeder — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 16:21:48 GMT

Esri ArcMap 10.2.1.3497

and explorer is 2500.

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

MarkBockenhauer — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 20:19:00 GMT

Bill,

I was not able to reproduce what you are seeing. Created a layer package from a note in ArcGIS Explorer 2500. Opened the package in ArcMap 10.2.1.3497 and Popup information is present. It is not truncated.

Mark

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

BillSchroeder — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:17:10 GMT

Mark, so that we're on the same page, would you mind posting a step by step, not images, just something like:

In Explorer, click on point, and place your point on the map, in the note dialog, enter a name, then in the pop up box beneath it, place information unique to the point, click OK.

Now go to your point icon in the contents window on the right and right click it and choose "share", in the Sharing window that appears, select ... etc etc.

At this point I can select either layer package or kml, and neither one, when migrated to arcmap will give me pop up info. The kmz file, though, will at least show the name of the pin I placed. See images:

This is in Explorer, the original pin.

This is the lpk file in ArcMap. Nothing I check in labels will display anything.

This is the kmz file imported into ArcMap. The only thing that appears is Name. If I add ANYTHING else it's blank.

And here is the popup / popup info extracted to dbf from the attribute table, it is the same in the lpk as wel las the kmz files.

[\code]

Wish this forum had code tags...

But wait, there's more!

I've attached them both if you want to give them a look see.

I'm thinking this is something I'll need to get my GIS IT guy to look at, and see if there's something in the settings keeping this from working.

We all answer to the IT department, and heaven forbid if our computers were functional and actually worked as tools, you know. Maybe he can get it going without begging IT to allow him to do anything. (I can't edit the xml file in explorer here on my desktop. I've been working on that in the tablet)

*Edit:

I took the kmz file and tested it in google earth, and the pop up dialog is intact, so it's something to do with arcmap, I'm sure. I'll have our GIS guy see if he can figure it out, thanks, Mark!

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

BillSchroeder — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 19:17:00 GMT

Unbelievable.

Does the phrase "HTML POP UP TOOL" sound familiar?

Works fine.

Unreal it's that easy. No idea why the attributes show that the pop up stuff is truncated, but it works now.

Thanks for all your help!

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

MarkBockenhauer — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 22:06:28 GMT

I think this is just an issue with labeling in ArcMap. I can reproduce the same issue.

If you set placement properties for the label you can make it show up, but it won't fit on the screen and won't look that good.

In the labeling properties.

I placed the label on the point.

I then set the Conflict Detection to place overlapping labels.

This labels the point.

You could use the following label expression to the make the Popup field from a layer package created in ArcGIS Explorer Desktop look better in ArcMap.

Function FindLabel ( [Popup] )

k = InStr( [Popup], "</style>" )

l = k + 7

totallength = Len( [Popup] )

bodycount = totallength - l

bodytext = Right( [Popup], bodycount )

if len(bodytext) > 10 then

if instr(bodytext," " )<>0 then

str=split(bodytext," " )

i=0

for i = lbound(str) to ubound(str)

FindLabel1= FindLabel1 & " " & str(i)

if len(FindLabel1) >= 25 then

label= label & " " & vbcrlf & " " & findlabel1

findlabel1=""

end if

findlabel = label & " " & vbCrLf & " " & FindLabel1

end if

else

FindLabel = bodytext

end if

End Function

The script removes the <style> tags and wraps the label text for display on the map.

To set text alignment use the Symbol Properties

When it comes to really long strings ArcMap's Identify and table window do not show everything, the value displayed is truncated. When you exported to .DBF that too is truncated as .DBF does not allow for text fields with lengths greater than 254.

In ArcMap's table window if you right click and copy the string value, you can paste it into a text editor, like notepad, and see the full value.

I see that you found a solution using the Popup tool in ArcMap, but to be thorough ... added the above.

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

BillSchroeder — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 12:12:25 GMT

Great advice, if I ever run into any Tolstoy-esque-ishly lengthy notes, I'll know how to handle them! But hopefully the only information these will have will be support data and measurements.

I really appreciate your time and effort in helping me with the icons, and especially the note problem.

Sure the solution was typically simple (often times the answer's hiding in plain site, eh?), but the wealth of knowledge you have shared is greatly appreciated and welcome.

Getting the notes to appear in arcmap was the last item on my list of things that perhaps didn't have to work for us to go full tilt using the tablets in the field offline, but it was something I wasn't going to let go of before I said, "Yes, this is ready."

You are a wealth of knowledge, and a credit to the community.

Thank you!

Re: Add Custom Icons to ArcGISExplorer 2500

BillSchroeder — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 13:57:36 GMT

Mark, one more question, I hope you can answer, if not I hope you can direct me to whomever I need to go.

We want our physical maps on the tablets running ArcExplorer to have the exact same icons showing for hydrants, etc as our wall maps show. Continuity and all that.

As you know, when you take any shapefiles from arcgis and put them in explorer, the icons and custom lines and everything are gone.

when you use kmz files, it's slow and mercilessly lethargic.

when you use layer packages, you lose the icons, but if you have esri's fonts in the windows\fonts directory, the icons show up fine. Because as you know, the icons are actually fonts.

the question is, is it legal to use the esri fonts from arcgis map in arc explorer? Both are arc software, should this not be okay? If not, is there a way other than kmz files to get the icon/fonts to show up on explorer?

Which brings to mind, of course, another question: is there any way to do view scaling (?) in arc explorer? I have layers one doesn't need to see when one is looking at the map from a scale of 12000:1, is there a way to get scaling to function in arc explorer? I wonder if the powers that be will work that in on a future software upgrade?

Thanks for putting up with my incessant questions and ramblings!