Offline Support of Silverlight/WPF

[EricDaniel]

Can anyone point me to any article or documentation on what support or features are available to applications developed with the ESRI Silverlight/WPF API when offline (not connected to the internet)?  Obviously WPF and Silverlight's Out of Browser feature supports offline use but I'm not seeing any mention of this from ESRI.  If there is not documentation out there on this maybe someone can provide some insight on what can be during with the API when offline.    Thanks....

[EricDaniel]

Couldn't yet another option be mixing WPF for the UI and the ArcGIS Mobile API?

[dotMorten_esri]

I don't know the mobile API that well, but if there is an API call that allows you to generate/render a map image based on an extent, width and height, I don't see why you couldn't create a custom dynamic layer that does this for you (you inherit from DynamicLayer, set FullExtent and SpatialReference in override Initialize() { } and override GetSource(...) where you will generate an image based on the parameter parsed to you).

[SimonFisher]

I am also interested in offline support.  Like another user above, the use case is fieldwork on a tablet where users are disconnected most of the time.  Yes of course engine or mobile would work, but these come with hefty licensing/deployment fees on a per seat basis, and if the app is mostly for map display, current location, and simple querying, these fees make the app cost too much.  The app is not centered around maps or GIS, they are supplemental, not every app is gis centric and needs to do everything arcobjects offers.

[DuaneWhistle]

We created a Custom WPF application with ArcGIS Mobile using Microsoft Studio 2010 VB.Net, none of this code is straight out of the box but it works totaly offline. We created tiled map cahes from the imagery and the feature classes are in mobile map caches that sync using ArcGIS Server. Some data is one way sync and some is a two way sync.

The user collects attribute data on structures and the data is synced back to a file geodatabse. Tha application collects GPS values with Range Finder offsets and the performace is great. ESRI needs to get to Microsoft Studio 2010 and support VB.Net and WPF Controls.

[JeffSahol]

I'm trying to work out how to use local data for the source of map tiles for offline users. When you say "custom built layer types", are you referring to a custom implementation of ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.DynamicLayer?

As it is right now (v2.0), all the API's rely on REST services, and if these are not available, the data will not be available.
As an alternative you could have a local ArcGIS Server REST service running, or use custom built layer types that can read from local data when using WPF.

Offline use-cases is definitely on our radar as a potential feature in a future release. If you can share your use-case, it will help us a great deal with envisioning future features.