ArcGIS Web viewers

[NickCharman1]

Hello,

I have currently taken over a pre-existing ArcGIS Server position. I myself only really have a working level knowledge of ArcServer and Web viewer.

We currently have one large over-arching Viewer for my organization that is worldwide. I know it has a config file in the inetpub folder on our server and thats how we edit the content(We are using Flex).

What I'd like to do is create additional viewers to focus on specific areas (Like a City, Continent, Municipality, etc).

I am trying to determine the best way to go about this (If its possible) and see how exactly i can start creating these additional viewers. Do I need to create additional config files? Do I need to do something within ArcGIS Server Manager?

Any info, tips or advice to get me started would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Nick

[BrendanDwyer]

Nick,

I think there's a couple of ways to go about it.  You could create separate web applications for each area. Not sure about the config file, but you could reuse almost all of your code (if you're happy with what you have now).

Or you could reconfigure the existing flex viewer with bookmarks to zoom to a particular area.  It sounds like the different areas are really different scales.

ArcGIS Server Manager isn't really part of the equation here.  Your web maps are consuming the services from ArcGIS Server.  If you wanted to add more services, you can do that from ArcMap.

-Brendan

[JonathanQuinn · Accepted solution]

Nick,

There are a few application builders out now that will give you a GUI to create applications.  The web application builder within ArcGIS Online or Portal for ArcGIS is built using Javascript and is pretty straightforward to use; build your webmap within the map viewer of ArcGIS Online or Portal and then you can share it as a web application through the web app builder.  The services don't need to be exposed externally for you to use them within ArcGIS Online or the web app builder.  You can also look into using the developer's version of the web application builder, which allows you to host the applications on your own web server.

Jon

[NickCharman1]

Cheers

[DerekLaw]

Hi Nick,

Just to add onto what others have posted, you have many different options available to you. And it really depends on your technical expertise and how dramatically you want to change/upgrade your existing web app. Sounds like your organization has been using the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex - which is fine, but please be aware that there will not be any new releases of it, as the Flex technology is pretty old.

I would start here,

About creating web GIS applications—Documentation (10.3 and 10.3.1) | ArcGIS for Server

and decide on what apps you'd like to use. There are many different apps available,

Ready-to-use apps—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS

I do agree with Jonathan that Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS is a great option, but you may also want to consider using the ArcGIS Online application templates.

Hope this helps,

[ScottPrindle]

Hey Nick,

While I would strongly recommend the Web AppBuilder to develop new applications, it is possible to extend your existing web application in Flex by creating new config.xml files. The link below explains how to specify a separate configuration file (ex. config_1.xml, config_state.xml) within the same application as a URL parameter:

ArcGIS Viewer for Flex - Viewer URL parameters

Hope this helps in the meantime, but for a long term solution Web AppBuilder is the way to go.

Thanks,

Scott

[roemhildtg]

A very similar application viewer is the CMV project. ArcGIS Web App Builder appears to work only for AGO, although someone mentioned that the developer version can be used on a hosted server.

One of the benefits of CMV is it lets you develop multiple applications using the same code base, simply utilize different config.js files. Since its based on dojo and the ArcGIS Javascript API, its also pretty easy to implement other widgets.

I'd give it a glance: cmv/cmv-app · GitHub