Is WMS supported using ArcGIS Explorer Online? I see that the "ArcGIS.com map viewer" supports WMS. More questions, sorry... What is the overall difference between these two products? Why would I choose one over the other?
Yes Explorer Online does support WMS. Currently the caveat is that to add a WMS layer you must first create an ArcGIS.com service item and add that to your map, rather than entering the url directly. Here are the steps:
Go to ArcGIS.com and sign in. (If you don't have an account you will need to create and register one)
Go to My Content, then Add Item. In the dialog select 'On the web' from the drop down, then OGC (Wms) type and complete the remaining details. See the Adding Items help for more information
Optionally then Share your new service item
Start Explorer Online. Sign in, click on My Content then the Services tab. You should see your new Wms service item. There is an option to add it to the map or to a new map.
In terms of the differences between the two applications - the fundamental difference is that Explorer Online requires the Microsoft Silverlight plugin to be installed. The ArcGIS.com map viewer does not have this restriction, as it is a Javascript application, so will be available on a wider range of configurations. The advantage of Explorer Online is that it provides a richer user experience - one example being that you can author presentations in Explorer Online, where as for the time being you can only view them in the ArcGIS.com viewer.
Unfortunately there is another caveat to using wms service items in Explorer Online.
Using the ArcGIS.com viewer - When a new map is created from a wms service item that does not have the same projection as one of the Esri basemaps, the viewer automatically switches out the current basemap and replaces it with a basemap that matches the projection of the service. Explorer Online does not currently work like this. The help makes reference to this issue in the troubleshooting page under the section "I cannot add services from ArcGIS Online. Message is 'The map service reference is invalid..."
The workaround for this issue is to save your map containing the service using the ArcGIS.com viewer and you will then be able to open it in Explorer Online.
The Explorer Online team are still working on wms improvements for the next release in which you will be able to directly add wms services to a map using their urls. We are also working on making error messages that you may receive more informative.
Thx, the 2 WMS services I posted on arcgis.com (1 of which u show here) seem to work now, will look into ur caveat/workaround, appreciate this is a work in progress. Cheers, Andrew
