ArcGIS Mobile cannot move existing features

[DavidPiesse]

It seems impossible in the new ArcGIS Mobile 10 App's (Desktop & Mobile) to select a exisitng feature (through Identify & Select) and then be able to move it's position.
Is this a limitation of the ArcGIS Mobile 10 ??? It really should be capable of some sort of Geometry moving!!!
Dave

[DeniseKing]

You are correct, the ready to deploy ArcGIS Mobile application does not currently support editing of existing feature(s) geometry beyond attribute editing and deletion of selected feature(s).  To be able to edit existing feature geometry, you will need to utilize ArcGIS Mobile SDK application. ArcGIS Mobile SDK provides Sketch and Geometry components used to create geometry on the map display using sketch  map action modes - sketch, modify, add vertex, remove vertex.

You can vote for this and other ArcGIS Mobile feature enhancements via Twitter Poll for ArcGIS Mobile below,
http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/mobilecentral/archive/2010/03/30/Twitter-Poll-for-ArcGIS-Mobile.aspx

Thanks,
Denise

[ThomasGates]

Has a Mobile developer team member yet created a sample tool that will extend the capabilities in ArcGIS Mobile 10 to allow for the editing of feature geometry?  I have a huge utiltites validation project & My field staff will need to move existing points to GPS location.  I desperately need this tool.  Can anyone provide assistance or guidance?

[KeithGerhartz1]

We too have this need. Has anyone addressed it?

[DeniseKing]

Hi Keith,

Editing of feature geometry is currently 'under consideration' for future release of ArcGIS Mobile.

Thank you,
Denise

[ChristianeBusch]

Hi Denise,

we too would appreciate a out of the box solution for editing existing geometries!

We decided us to use Mobile 10, but currently I am rather dissapointed.
We have an ArcGIS ArcView desktop license and I understood, that Mobile 10 would be included. Instead I find, that 
- our software constellation is not beared in mind when writing the help documents (No, we dont have ArcGIS Server...),
- because of that it was difficult to find out that I had to install a patch to create the essential global IDs,
- the management of a larger number of raster images is very inconvenient because raster catalogs are not supported (and we cant make a tiled cache without ArcGIS Server license)
- it takes very long to produce the map cache (e.g. 1.4 GB jpg-images resulting in a 0.5 GB map cache took 3 hours. We run a Phenom II X4 Processor with 4 GB ram, but obviously ArcGIS uses only one core...)

For small projects with limited data amount Mobile 10 works great for us (after I managed to work through the necessary steps, which took some time...), but not for more complex tasks and major numbers of raster images.

If I missed a solution for the mentioned problems, please tell me. Apart from that please go ahead in enhancing Mobile 10 for ArcView license holders!

Thank you,
Christiane Busch

[AnthonyFarndon]

One has to say this is a major oversight, surely editing geometry is what makes GIS, well GIS. I have added a vote for editing of feature geometry, but in my humble opinion I have to say having to vote for basic mobile gis functionality seems rather odd.

I understand that the OTB Mobile application is built with the underlying sdk itself, so most of the pieces to the puzzle are all there (the technology to be able to do it and the customer demand). The final missing piece of the puzzle is ESRI desire.

It seems that ArcGIS Mobile for Windows/Windows Mobile is turning out to be the forgotten child, with effort going into the smartphone API's (e.g. they have attachment support as well). The last work done on AGM was september 2010 (build 2475, a 'quick bug fix') and it would appear there is no development staff assigned to this product anymore. However, whilst the smartphone api's are great, quite simply very few organisations are moving to these platforms as an enterprise solution (if at all), and have either ArcPAD or ArcGIS Mobile to choose from.

So after the above rant, I guess a plea to esri to recognise that ArcGIS Mobile is and can continue to be a viable, long term solution for many if only a little t-l-c was given.

[JeffShaner]

Tony/All,

Rest assured that we have a team very much dedicated to the development of ArcGIS Mobile. There are quite a few new features coming in the 10.1 release and we will showcase them at the Users Conference this year. Our new feature development introduced dependencies on the 10.1 desktop architecture for release and this is the main reason why you have not seen any new feature development since 10.0. We do have another bug fix release (build 2500) that will be in the customer care portal soon (target for upload is the end of this week).

Some of the new features include:
1. Geometry Editing - our initial focus with geometry editing is centered around how you can leverage the GPS to edit the geometry of a feature. The workflows we are targeting here include partial feature collection (collect part of a line -> stop -> collect additional features -> return to collecting the line), replacing portions of features, etc.
2. Support for Attachments - this is quite easy for a smartphone to do today as everything you do happens in a connected way. With attachment support in Windows Mobile you will be able to download features and have the option to download attachments, you will be able to collect attachments of various types and then upload.
3. Simplified Data Collection - We had quite a few complaints that our collection workflow was too "geeky". We have simplified the process for 10.1.
4. GPS Information - we are providing a way to always show the GPS information on the map. We also have Compass-driven navigation. You can navigate to a feature, to a location on the map, etc.
5. Desktop workflows - creating a project with the Mobile Project Center has been vastly improved. Inside of the package itself you will be able to include both a mobile cache of data content as well as offline basemaps so that it is literally a matter of deploying a single file and it will unpack all of your content.
6. Map Analyzers - we will provide the ability to use the map analyzer capability in ArcMap to diagnose errors and warnings for mobile services before publishing.

There is much more on its way for this platform as we move forward. Above are the features we will be showcasing at the Users Conference and we will talk through additional improvements plus our roadmap.

Please feel free to email me directly with any feedback:
jshaner@esri.com

Thanks,

Jeff

[AnthonyFarndon]

Thanks Jeff,

Am currently tucking into some humble pie....

[PeterTimmers]

Can I clarify whether you can do vertex editing in 10.0 when you're developing in the SDK?

The only part of my 9.3.1 code I can't get working is my vertex editing.

I did another post elsewhere and saw this one. 

I have a feature selected and then turn on the VertexMoveSketchTool mapaction and it used to bring up the sketchlayer but nothing happens now.  There doesn't seem to be any examples anywhere.

We've had some successful large scale trials with mobile 10 on nomad trimbles.  Mind you we had to simplify the workflow with a task modification (pretty much the custom task that's given in the examples).  Our users were happy with it...  most hiccups were with the hardware (mostly the GPSs and SD cards).  Getting our Windows app moved to 10.0 from 9.3.1 has taken me longer than I thought it would.

I'm assuming any talks on 10.1 Mobile will be published online after the UC.  Some of us can't make it.