Hi,
Will the GIS Editor support some sort of setup/workspace management ?
I.e. specs for a complete work setup with maps et.al.,
If so, will this be saved as a local file in some format (e.g. xml), that can be utilized in other editions like web edition ?
Thanks.
Hello Lars I,
Thank you for your post, we support save or load the project(workspace) file, and we can save single layer or style to file, then you can load them into web edition.
Feel free to let me know if you have any more queries.
Regards,
Gary
Hi,
I'm currently at a point in the development of our web edition solutions, where I need to determine whether to implement my own map management solution, or facilitate support for one that exists.
The GIS Editor may fit that position, provided that we can construct our own "workspaces" of layers (overlays) with it, save the setup locally, and use them to deploy into our own solution. As I understand your answer, it will.
Is the proposed "workspace" file format available, so I can implement use of it ?
TIA
Hello Lars I,
One misunderstanding is we don't support import the "workspace" into web edtion for now. The GisEditor is using wpf edition so the workspace which exported including some overlays that not supported by web edition.
In my last answer, I mean we can import the single layer or style into web edition, when you export it, GisEditor will serializa it and automatically deserialize it when you import into web edition.
But I think your idea is very good and useful, we will consider that in the official release, also you can vote this enhancement to helpdesk.thinkgeo.com/EnhancementTracker. This captures the enhancement request and provides visibility to the customer letting them know that the enhancement is on a list somewhere and that popularity of the enhancement helps set the priority of when the enhancement would be added to the product. This option doesn't carry any cost for you.
Regards,
Gary
Hi,
I've now downloaded GIS Editor, and has tested it somewhat.
To my dismay I find that the project file is binary, i.e. basically unusable for integration with other editions. I don't suppose there's any public API for reading (and possibly writing) project files ?
I'm not sure what you meant by exporting a single layer or style. How is this accomplished in GIS Editor ?
Would you consider adding a more readable exchange format for a setup, e.g.. XML based ?
It would still be usuable in web edition, as one could ignore the parts that doesn't work.
--
Alternatively, it could be built as a custom plugin, but the wiki page on that subject is still missing ... ?
Does this mean that the only customisation currently available is using Python/Ruby/C# ?
Lars,
The project file is XML however we zipped them all up and changed the extension. If you rename the project file to .zip and then open it you will find all of the XML files. We plan to also support import of arc project files as well.
The entire GIS Editor sits on top of a well designed plugin system. Every piece of functionality is actually a MEF loaded plugin. We have different types of plugins such as LayerPlugins, UIPlugins, StylePlugins, and many more. Also underpinning the plugin system is a manager system which are heavy lifting singletons of the GIS Editor framework that are MEF replaceable as well. Below is a link to a hidden page on our wiki that will house all of the developer API information in it. While we haven’t posted them yet we have lots of plugin samples that do all kinds of things.
We wanted to get the GIS Editor out to get feedback and while we were in beta we will be releasing lots of developer focused videos, sample, and guides. I made sure that they system was extremely extensible and used things like XML for transparency. Like I said every piece of functionality is plugin and in fact you could using a MEF plugin replace the MEF loading system for the plugins. Another very cool feature is the ability to embed the editor window into another app. The editor area is actually a user control that go on a form so you can reference the exe and embed the user control directly. This gives you allot of control over things though at this point it is undocumented but more information is on the way.
Early next week I should have a video showing how to write a simple plugin that can get you up and running. It will be rough however I think you will get the idea. There are some special things you need to setup in your plugin project to be able to debug against the released editor. Another thing to note is that when you start developing plugins you might want to switch to the developer branch in the Options / Update / Update Channel. In this way you will get the daily build version of the GIS Editor delivered to you. We are currently working with different customers already building plugins so sometimes we need to make changes to meet certain scenarios. The architecture and extensible potential is my favorite part of the GIS Editor and very soon you will be able to explore it fully.
wiki.thinkgeo.com/wiki/Map_Suite_GIS_Editor
David
Thanks David,
I opened it in Winzip, and found the XML file (*.tgmap).
Looks very interesting indeed.
I'll have to have a much closer look at this file, but it does seems to contain the information needed.
Cheers.
Lars,
There is also a .setting file you can unzip as well in the path below. This file holds global setting for each plugin and manager.
C:\Users[Your User Name]\AppData\Local\MapSuiteGisEditor[Update Profile]
David