From what I have read the SOEs at 9.4 will allow us to extend the REST Operations. Will this allow us to write a new REST Operation? For example can we write a new REST Operation, called extent, which accepts similar inputs to the query layer operation but instead of returning the features that match the query inputs it will return just the extent of the features that match the query inputs? Then we can call it on any Layer in any published Map Service just like I can with the query layer Operation?
Another example of how we would like to extend the REST API is to add to the capability of the export map REST Operation. We would like to add to the parameters like format, layerDefs, layers, to include symbol or renderer information. Then this symbol or renderer information can be applied to the respective layers within the Map Service. The image (PNG) being generated will honor the changes made to the renderer of each layer. Obviously this will only work for a Dynamic Map Service.
I am currently using ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 for Java on a Windows Server and I have exported the web service handlers to a Linux server that is running Apache/Tomcat. We DO NOT use IIS anywhere in our configuration. Are there any issues with using SOEs to extend the REST API for our configuration? Can we use Java to extend the REST API? If I understand correctly the web service handlers are JavaScript, HTML and JSP files. Will extending the REST API for our configuration involve using JavaScript, HTML and/or JSPs? Will any thing need to be running on our Linux web server? Are there any examples of SOEs that extend the REST API?
Thanks,
-eric
