Hi
Any news on OOB support?
I provided some feedback in February about my requirements for OOB support. We are now starting work on the SIlverlight version of out product and really need this. We need to be able to load shape files into the silverlight map control. If this is not possible we will have to somhow include the windows forms map control which we would like to avoid!
Cheers
Steve
Steve,
Thank you for your post, we are still looking at it but it’s not being worked on it.
And we have a enhancement tracker system, you can access at helpdesk.thinkgeo.com/EnhancementTracker
It already includes item for “Add Out-Of-Browser (OOB) support.”, you can search to find it.
You can vote it up to make it more popluar so that the prority will be higher that we will implement first.
Regards,
Gary
When you say it does not run OOB what do you mean?
Can I take it OOB but use a locally hosted WCF service to grab shape files?
Or will it simply not work OOB?
What about running in browser and using the locally hosted WCF service to get locally stored data?
Cheers
Steve
Steve,
The issue at the moment is that we have no way to secure our component in the OOB experience. We have been looking into various ways but have not found one that meets all of our requirements. Without being able to secure the run times we do not have many choices. We are still considering various ways however considering that there are a number of high profile projects going on at the moment this is not a very high priority.
David
Hi David
Thanks for the reply.
What happens then when you take a Silverlight app using the ThinkGeo control OOB? Does it just not work?
Cheers
Steve
Steve,
I believe so because it cannot communicate to the server to get the licensing. I think…
David
Hi David
Not sure why it needs to do this. I thought licensing was for development and distribution was royalty free. Can’t you secure it when it is running inside visual studio?
Open to any suggestions as this is causing us huge problems. We need an offline Silverlight app and will have to look at re-writing the whole app in WPF if we can’t get Silverlight GIS tools working OOB.
Cheers
Steve
Steve,
The person I need to talk with about this is gone until next week. I will ask him and see if we cant find a work around for this. I’m sorry that I can’t go much further into licensing issue but it’s not something I can discuss here. Sorry I could not be more helpful of the the cuff.
David
Hi David
Any news on this? We can take this offline if required.
Cheers
Steve
Steve,
We are not going to be able to handle the out of browser scenario at the moment. One other quick clarification from a previous post was that the distribution model for the Silverlight Edition was not royalty free exactly is that it is licensed per server. If we can’t authenticate through the server then we our outside of our licensing strategy. I would image that if we did a Silverlight OOB then it would be licensed like the Desktop Edition, which is royalty free. We are just not setup to do this at the moment and have our priorities set out for this quarter already. While we can make changes that come up intra quarter this one was deemed too large to tackle at this point.
David
[...]
Please fix this.
The original Windows Mobile 6 control doesn’t talk to the server. It works in offline mode with shape files. There are no licensing issues with this. Why is licensing being used as an excuse not to provide Out of Browser support?
I don’t understand this at all. Out of Browser would have worked by default. ThinkGeo must have deliberately removed Out of Browser support for some reason. Why?
We are required to write an offline application where data is sync’d on to mobile devices or laptops that don’t always have an internet connection. Therefore, Out of Browser is a must have for us. .If this is not fixed, we will be forced to move to a different GIS control vendor
Please fix this!!!
Christian,
We have an idea on how we can maintain the license integrity and also get OOB working. We are doing that today and should know definitively tomorrow. This has been in the schedule for some time and we are just finishing up with the final release items that did not make it to do this.
We did not do anything deliberately to prevent it from working in OOB except to enforce our our licensing strategy. The rub has always been protecting our IP, way back in Map Suite version 2 some pirated copies got out and it hurt our sales. We offer free support to anyone and we can only do that when we feel the people posting are customers or potential customers.
It’s not fair to compare the Windows Mobile version versus Silverlight as they are apple and oranges. One is almost like a desktop control and the other is specifically designed around the web. OOB functionality was an afterthought in Silverlight development and we had already established our license before people start to use it. The Windows Mobile 6 version is much more like our Windows Phone 7 offering which is licensed like our desktop applications. I feel we have one of the best licensing models out, I hope to get Silverlight OOB in line with your expectations.
David
Gentlemen,
We are putting the finishing touches on Out of Browser and I expect the feature will be part of the daily build on Monday. The key was a new feature in Silverlight 4.0, thank goodness. :-)
David
As much as I am pleased to hear this, a heads-up would have been nice. I asked this question 7 weeks ago and was told it was not going to happen and that your priorities had been set for this quarter. I took that for a fairly final decision and started re-writing my app in WPF.
Steve
Steve,
I thought at the time the decision was pretty much final. We have no advantage to tell you we wont have it and then produce it magically. At the same time I didn’t want to give you false hope. Seven weeks ago we were starting the long process of certifying the November release. When that happens most things go on hold until after the release. Of course we still have teams on some big items but many of the smaller features get put on the back burner. Right before then we had researched doing out of browser but could not find a way to pull it off within the licensing parameters we had. At that point I didn’t want to say well wait for 4-6 week and then we will have it, as I thought it was not going to be possible. As with so many things the answer came when we stopped beating our heads against the wall looking for it. A few days ago one of the guys here noticed one of the new feature on Silverlight 4 and it clicked to him that we could use that as a mechanism for our licensing. Of course once that happened, as the release was out, we jumped on it and implemented it, you should see it on Monday. I always try and give our customers the straight shot as to what I think is going to happen and I am typically an optimist.
As to your project, I don’t think it was a bad decision to write it in WPF. First off if you have a Silverlight app you can try the out of browser and see if it meets your needs and it can offer a backup plan to your current development. Second the WPF is more advanced and should be faster the the Silverlight Edition. Silverlight is still constrained in a number of ways and is slower to disk access etc than WPF, drawing sytem is slower etc. If I were a betting man I would bet that you will eventually find some feature you need that you could not do in Silverlight and you are going to be glad you have the full desktop power in WPF.
David
Thanks for the update David.
Will this work with Silverlight 5?
Steve
Steve,
I do not believe we have tested Silverlight 5 yet however it should work. Actually the functionality is there in 5.5.14.0, developer build version, we were going to post the documentation, sample etc for Monday morning. If you want to get ahead of the curve check it out. Below are some important notes about it.
Here are the points that we should pay attention to:
1. To run application in out-of-browser, you have to right-click the project and show “project properties” window, and then select "Enable running application out of the browser”. We also have to click the button "Out-of-Browser Settings…” to make sure the item "Required elevated trust when running outside the browser” is selected.
2. To make ensure the ServerLayerOverlay can find its way home to the server OOB you need to use the property “ConnectorHost” url of ServerLayerOverlay. Set this to the URL of the page hosting the SilverlightMapConnetor, it’s used to simulate the server of the overlay where we request images from.
David
One question.
Will shape files work in offline mode. I.e. If I pull the network cable out of my laptop, and turn off the wireless connection, will I be able to render/query shape files that are stored in isolated storage / xap package?
One question.
Will shape files work in offline mode. I.e. If I pull the network cable out of my laptop, and turn off the wireless connection, will I be able to render/query shape files that are stored in isolated storage / xap package?