topic Re: Building A Custom Widget in Web AppBuilder Custom Widgets Questions

Building A Custom Widget

ChrisHolmes — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 15:58:50 GMT

A bit of a scary subject? Maybe for some, definitely for me . But, what direction does one go when desired functionality isn't found in existing web app templates or widgets?

If one wants to build a custom widget, but doesn't know where to begin, where do you start? What do you need to know?

As far as programming goes, you're probably going to need to know:

some JavaScript
probably wouldn't hurt to have an understanding of the dojo framework
maybe also something about how to program against a REST service
would help to understand how all those widget files relate and talk to each other
and probably all sorts of other stuff...

What about in the python world? That's personally more my comfort zone. I know that there's now a Python API available, haven't really looked at it. But is the web application stuff still heavily in the JavaScript world?

Searching on the internet doesn't really turn much up as far as a 'how to from the ground up' sort of thing (at least from my own searching). Certainly haven't seen any course(s) that would help achieve this goal.

What do people think? Where does one start? I wonder if Esri has thought about building a course like this, I suspect it would be a big course heavy on content. Or maybe a series of courses to reach this end goal. Maybe they don't see the demand for this in the community, it would certainly be a lot of effort to build these course(s) and if they don't see there being a big enough interest... Well, that's maybe why we don't see any courses.

I'd appreciate hearing thoughts and ideas about this topic.

Thanks,

Chris

Re: Building A Custom Widget

RobertScheitlin__GISP — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 16:48:48 GMT

Chris,

Wow that is a lot of questions...

I would start here:

Create a custom in-panel widget—Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS (Developer Edition) | ArcGIS for Developers

This is a step by step tutorial on building a custom widget.

Other resources:

https://community.esri.com/groups/geodev-germany/blog/2018/06/11/create-custom-widgets-for-your-web-app-an-intro

https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/599314386a53461c0bc8f538/introduction-to-web-appbuilder-for-arcgis-developer-editi…

Esri does have videos for this as well

https://community.esri.com/groups/web-app-builder-custom-widgets/blog/2018/06/06/new-wab-de-video-whats-inside-a-custom-widget

https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/5b7c79e79e88f041cded68dc/web-appbuilder-for-arcgis-developer-edition%3A-hardcoding…

Re: Building A Custom Widget

ChrisHolmes — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 17:03:40 GMT

Hi Robert, yes it certainly is a handful. I think that's why I decided to put it in the discussion vs the standard ask a question. But, yep it's a lot.

Thanks!