CF_ArcIMS

We had a disk controller on our (now old) production box die last week while I was on holiday. Luckily we had another on order…anyway After re-installing everything on the new box, I have run into problems registering cfx_esrimap — I register it at its usual (old) location of JRUN4/bin/ but when I try to run a CF + ArcIMS page I get an “unable to load library” error from CF_ArcIMS. Now I know I should just change everything and use the Java connector…but this should be a simple problem that may have to do with running the “latest” of everything JRUN and CF. Margaret had a similar problem that she was asking me about a few weeks ago, but all I could say was basically “it’s working on mine…”, so I suspect this is the same problem…
Coldfusion/ArcIMS Users Group Meeting
Hello everyone. Just got word back from ESRI on a meeting room, time and date for the 2nd annual CF ArcIMS users group meeting to be held during the User Conference in San Diego. Here it is:

Date: 8/10/2004
Time: 12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Room: Room 14-A

Maybe we’ll get some guest speakers and an agenda this year? Ideas?

At the moment I am going to stick with JRUN as the Tomcat issues had caused me too much grief, but if you want to make the upgrade to CFMX and use Tomcat read Fred’s post, he knows more than a thing or two about CFMX configuration issues. Good job Fred.

 

XML Spy
I have just started having a look at XML Spy 5, which arrived some time ago, but I must admit that I still use CF Studio 5 for just about everything. I know I need a tool for XML (and AXL) validation, but as a developer it seems that that spare 50 – 75 hours to learn a new software package just isn’t there lying on the desk when I log on in the morning.

That said, I do see the usefulness of the tool, and XML solutions, including Web Services (not to mention RSS feeds) are getting more pervasive by the minute. If anyone is using some other XML editor/tool/method I would like to know, and I will stick with good ‘ol CF Studio for the timebeing — now if I could just find those spare hours sitting somewhere behind the coffee cup…

Oh yes, if you are using XML Spy 5, Altova released an update today (V. 5 release 4) that can be dowloaded at: http://www.altova.com/download . And if you don’t have it, you download the evaluation version at the same download address, so you can fill up a few of those spare hours…

We’ve been Goog’d
I just heard from Geoff Bowers this morning (creator of the fullasagoog.com Blog aggregator) and we have been added to Full As A Goog . If you have a look we are listed as “ArcIMS” in “Blogs on Tap” in the screen-left menu . So if you want to read the Blog there, well you can, that’s all. New entries will also appear on the main full as a goog page as CF entries. I am very happy to be included in the wider MX development community, and I think full as a goog is a great application. Goog out.

CFMX Updater 3 Disables Remoting Web Services
CFMX Updater 3 disables Flash Remoting’s access to web services, although it does not disable your Flash Remoting via CFCs – I needed to clarify that one. So if you want this access you need to edit the web.xml file located within flashgateway.ear > gateway-webapp.war to set the DISABLE_CFWS_ADAPTERS parameter to false (it will be set to true after the Updater 3 Install) and then pack the whole thing up again.

The technote for doing this is located here.

Projections
I need a way to implement different projections from within map services and on the fly. Does anyone know of a good resource on the topic, or have any tips/suggestions ? I am pulling my data out of SDE – connected to Oracle which is spatially enabled with the Oracle code for lat/long data, which is 8307, I believe.

Royale
I have been hearing a bit from the Macromedia rumour mill on ‘Royale’ the new technology to build Flash interfaces entirely from XML I’m sure we will be hearing more about this in the near future… see mesh on mx — Also see Laszlo Systems for something that may be similar.

Even if ArcXML disappears with the next release (which is also a rumour), there will still have to be some XML support built into the next ArcIMS release, whether this is real GML 3.0 or whatever…

Why the Lack of Docs ?
Well, given the discussion going on about getting ArcIMS working under CFMX without the need for a servlet engine has caused me to think why ESRI seems to be shying away from official CFMX support when, in fact, CF is the best platform to develop ArcIMS applications. I don’t want to wax into Microsoft conspiracy theories, but one has to wonder why…

Flash Remoting and JRUN
I am still having some issues with my CFMX Flash Remoting which was taken over by JRUN Flash Remoting after my JRUN install. Now that I have CFMX up and running with ArcIMS, it logically follows for me to begin using CFCs and expose them both to the ColdFusion ArcIMS pages as well as to my Flash front-end menu (and any other Flash based menu add-ons).

It should be a simple fix as JRUN installs its version of Flash Remoting and that takes over from the CFMX version. Anyway, I have just come back to this issue, and I think Flash based components would be ideally suited for an ArcIMS interface.