Web App Builder (Beta 3)

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10-14-2014 01:14 PM
BrianO_keefe
Occasional Contributor III

I'm toasted.

I've spent 2 days now trying to develop an app with Web App Builder.

1) Local

Downloaded Web App Builder (Beta 3). Set it up on my server. Double-clicked startup.bat and get nothing but errors. Don't know if it's due to having a WebAdaptor or what, but I can't get it to work. My co-worker is suddenly decisively moving forward trying to unlock the errors but I'm done.

2) ArcGIS Online

Built the entire web app with Web App Builder (Beta 3) online. Laid it out, setup the pop-ups, configured the widgets, and then realized there wasn't a 'download' button. Almost lost my mind.

3) Web App Viewer

Downloaded this cockamammy nonsense and am proceeding to pull my hair out.

http://maps.cityoftulsa.org/iot/

There's the URL. I keep getting 'Forbidden Access' and I have no idea why. I'm editing the config.json file, but I'm quickly losing hope. Long week... and it's only Tuesday.

I figured this whole process would be INFINITELY easier if we just installed Portal but I don't have the time to even research it thoroughly enough to figure out if it will cause issues with our current configurations?! Ugh.

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39 Replies
BrianO_keefe
Occasional Contributor III

I think my favorite part of this confusing process is:

http://doc.arcgis.com/en/web-appbuilder/manage-apps/deploy-app.htm

Add custom widgets:

  1. Put the custom widget in widgets folder.
  2. Add the widget into app’s config.json.

    Taking Demo widget as an example. Add it into config.json file

    { "name": "Demo", "label": "Demo", "uri": "widgets/Demo/Widget", "index": 13, "id": "widgets/Demo/Widget_1"  },

'Put the custom widget in widgets folder.'

What? This 'app' has ONE folder... called dynamic-modules and there are no widget folders or files in the entire thing.

It's like the people at ESRI that developed this app have NEVER had to install or set it up. I'm getting to that point where I just go back to FlexViewer for development... which is making me frustrated.

RobertScheitlin__GISP
MVP Emeritus

Brian,

    Did you have Beta 2 Developer version working in your development machine? I have not messed with the ArcGIS Online version but here is a thread about accessing your app once you are done configuring it online: Access WAB app

I am not even sure what "Web App Viewer" is...

In your second post you mention there is no widgets folder... Your app that you move to your web server should definitely have a widgets folder. Using my local Beta3 developer version I can add custom widgets to this path (based on the fact that I downloaded the Beta3 to my C:\webappbuilder3 folder) C:\webappbuilder3\client\stemapp\widgets

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BrianO_keefe
Occasional Contributor III

Yeah, apparently the Web App Viewer App is a means of storing locally some kind of reference / pointer to your Web App built with the Online Web App Builder. It has NO widget folders because you should have configured those online and any custom widgets you 'apparently' have to create and configure personally.

I never had the time to get the Beta 2 Dev setup. I am inundated with putting out fire projects. Now I have a big streets project map I have to deploy and I'm leaning towards just installing Portal so I can do all of this on our server instead of dancing with ArcGIS Online.

Ugh!

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RobertScheitlin__GISP
MVP Emeritus

Brain,

   As the WAB is not fully released I would not be looking at it as a platform for your time constraint projects.

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BrianO_keefe
Occasional Contributor III

I know. I'm currently researching Portal.

I'm 100% averse to pointing our customers to ArcGIS online for any maps we develop as we already have a clustered ArcGIS Server system with a Web Adaptor setup and running.

So now I'm trying to figure out what pitfalls there are in deploying Portal on an already clustered / web adaptored system... *facepalm*

BradNesom
New Contributor II

It's just koolaid

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LeeGraham
New Contributor III

If you don't like AGOO/AGO, you will definitely be frustrated by Portal.  We are using both extensively, and Portal is currently running about 2 clicks behind AGOO/AGO.  The basic process of creating an application with webapp builder, however, is essentially the same, except for dealing with the authentication aspect.

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BrianO_keefe
Occasional Contributor III

My problem with AGOO/AGO is merely that I dislike sending clients (ergo the public) to a non-City website to view our data. We didn't populate Google Maps for the public and we won't populate AGOO/AGO maps for the public neither.

I want all maps to be built and published from the very expensive servers we already have... lol.

But now I have to ask... what do you mean, "2 clicks behind?"

LeeGraham
New Contributor III

All 3 of the authentication issues for Portal require you to configure your Portal to SSL only, meaning you have to take special measures to load any http content - meaning almost anyone's external services.  Setting up the proxy page to work well is difficult and even if set up properly will slow down your response, even more than the SSL does.  SSL = slow response, SSL + proxy = much slower response, even if you have very powerful servers and highly optimized data (well-thought out spatial and attributes indexes, well constructed map documents, etc) and services.  It is still buggy as far as carrying the https all the way through all pages, and the bugginess is different among the various browsers.

As far as AWAB, Esri is consistently developing for AGOO/AGO first, and then circling back to fit in the IWA and PKI-based Windows authentication methods, so if you are using those, chances are you will get stuck on an earlier beta for some time.  We got stuck using Beta1 until this week - not that it is a huge deal as we also used Beta 2 on an AGOO hosted project and did not see any real differences. Also, the custom widgets developed by our group in Beta 1 work in Beta 3 with no real changes.  What we haven't figured out if how to get the new Beta3 to work with web tier authentication - there is a flag we can see but have not gotten it to work. We  can see the code behind that is doing stuff - but we will have to work through this and will keep you updated once we get it figured out.  That is what I meant by two-clicks behind as far as this Beta program.

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