ArcObjects replacement

[CarlosPiccirillo2]

Hi everyone, I have an ArcObjects standalone application that works outside of ArcMap to create automated maps. Basically the code works as follows:

1. Load pre-created template (mxd) that has static items, North arrow, etc., Load base layers, image, roads, canals, etc.

2. Read Access database to determine which permits were entered that day.

3. Create and load layer containing feature of each permit needing to be mapped from source SDE layer and zoom into it.

4. Turn on desired layers, roads, canals, permit boundary, etc. and export map as a pdf file. Remove permit polygon layer to reset template and go to next item on the list from Access.

This code was created with ArcObjects 10.8. Since ArcMap/ArcObjects is going away, I need to convert this to something else to continue to use it. From what I have read, that seems to be ArcGIS Runtime SDK for .NET but it appears that itself is being replaced by ArcGIS Maps???

Any help in how to replace this code would be appreciated.

Thanks, Carlos

[DuncanHornby]

You state that you are aware that ArcMap is being retired but you don't actually say if you want to make the jump to ArcPro? If you do then I would say many of your steps could be automated in arcpy, driving ArcPro projects for map production.  You don't need the heavy investment of using VB/C# in visual studio.  You can run python in an IDE, don't even need ArcPro open if that's what you want.

What might be highly problematic for you is that ArcPro does not support MS Access in the way ArcMap use to. A failing of ArcPro in my opinion as MS Access is a very useful and powerful database software used by many. You could use the interoperability extension to export from an accdb as an intermediate step.

[CarlosPiccirillo2]

Duncan,

Thanks for the reply. In the year since my original post, I have been able to successfully convert the old ArcMap ArcObjects code into an ArcGIS Pro add-in using C# in visual studio. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get the code to run from outside of Pro but I'm told by ESRI tech support that add-ins only work inside of Pro. At the time, I didn't know which way to go programming wise and add-ins seemed like the easiest solution figuring it would not take much to go from an add-in to a standalone application as I had done with the original ArcMap code.....obviously, I was wrong.

The reason I chose C# was because I have over 15 years' experience coding ArcObjects with it and figured my learning curve using Pro would be minimized since this was my first attempt at coding anything in Pro. 

ESRI tech support like you, recommended coding this workflow in Python using ArcPy which I will at some point do but right now need to move on to a different assignment.

I was not aware of the Pro not supporting MS Access but will keep that in mind.