Flash-ArcIMS-CFMX

Flash-ArcIMS-CFMX
Hey Everybody-

Here’s another Flash-ArcIMS-CF example application that my colleague (Asif Iqbal) here at the Kansas Geological Survey has written for the community. He has built it from the ground up using Flash as the GUI environment and CF as the back-end application logic environment. CF then executes requests to ArcIMS and the flash client handles the output. Asif has done a great job on this and has documented the flash code extensively. I encourage you to check it out, download it, and try it out with your map services.

This example application does not do any database queries or take advantage of the XML processing capabilities of CFMX which when employed make this environment 10 times more powerful. Dynamic database-driven Flash applications rule!

Cheers,

OK, so now we have a new version of ArcIMS — but has so much happened since the initial release? And how is the competition doing? I haven’t followed things very closely, but I feel that ArcIMS is passed in terms of standards compliance at least. How does ArcIMS stack up against deegree, mapserver and others (non-open source) in performance/standards/cartographic quality/database support. I recently saw the demis demo, and I was very impressed: http://www.demis.nl/home/pages/wms/docs/wmsclients.htm

 

I just wanted to let everyone know that I will be filling in for Jason at the ESRI conference–Jason’s going phishing. He asked me to take over the organization of the CF-ArcIMS users group meeting we are having. So…I would like to wet the appetite of any newbie’s that come along by showing them all of the way cool, easy things that you can do with CF in combination with ArcIMS. Jason has suggested inviting Margaret from ESRI (a cf developer who works on one the ArcIMS teams) to come and give a short “what’s new” with the latest release of ArcIMS. What about a CF expert? Paul H. are you going to be at the conference? And if so would you like to get roped into this?

We would also like to showcase other sites the community has developed. I know everybody has the issue of…this site is not for public display…so what I would like to see is if the community could give one or two powerpoint slides that I could show to the group. What do you think?

Also…What is up with Macromedia’s CF discussion group page? It hasn’t worked for like two months….

One last thing. Has there ever been a CF-GIS (ArcIMS, WMS, Flash GIS) article in the CF Developers journal? I am sure most CF developers have no idea what GIS is, but it might be a good way to exapnd that base.

ArcSDE required for ArcIMS 9 and a DB
For most this is a non-issue as you will have stuck with a full SDE license throughout in order to connect to the DB. However, for us, having gone with Direct Connect and then having dropped SDE it is an issue. As Jeremy Bartlett pointed out a long while ago now, on page 10 of the document “Making a Direct Connection” it stated that ArcSDE is required for a Direct Connection (under System Requirements). Now that 9 has been released officially, I have checked up with ESRI and now have word that this document, and this policy, stands. Meaning that SDE is required even for read-only connections, which is what Direct Connect was and is…

ArcIMS 9 Data Delivery Extension
I was just browsing through the ArcIMS 9 info on ESRI’s web site and I have noticed the Data Delivery Extension, which “..enables users to easily select, export, and deliver data in multiple formats and projections from a centralized Internet Map Server”. Amongst these formats are: EPS, SVG, VML, and VRML. The FAQ states that layers from “ESRI ArcSDE 8.x/SDE 3.x” can be exported, but Direct Connect is not mentioned. I suspect that Direct Connect now requires ArcSDE anyway, as pointed out previously by Jeremy Bartlett, but I still have not chased down the definitive answer to that one…

ArcIMS 9 (4.0.2 ?)
Well, it seems the last entry got deleted…anyway, Jason has reported that ArcIMS is a bit more stable, but nothing major has changed — ArcIMS 4.0.1 apps still work under 9. Jason has also pointed out that his clients have copies but he has not received the final release….