Geocortex Blog

We’re pleased to announce that Geocortex Essentials 2.4 has been released!  This release includes several highly anticipated and powerful new features for Geocortex Essentials Web ADF Elements.

Here is a brief summary of what’s new:

• Enhanced map tips support multiple overlapping features from one or more layers.  This allows the user to quickly cycle through the details of all features that were found under the mouse cursor when more than one is found.
• Layer explorer is a highly anticipated addition that allows the user to choose which layers are included in the map and layer list on the fly.  An administrator can add all layers to a site with only a subset shown in the map and layer list when the site is launched, thus allowing the user to pick and choose the layers that interest them.
• Raster catalog filter provides the user a variety of options to filter images from a raster catalog layer: turn individual images on and off from a dialog, draw a shape on the map to show only intersecting images, and perform an attribute query to show images that match.
• Combined coordinate and measure tool combines the point measure tool with the zoom to coordinate tool to create a single tool that is both more powerful and easier to use.
• Layer links allow an administrator to define an attribute relationship between features from separate layers.  An end user can then query related records from a linked layer when viewing a report or selection set.

Note that Geocortex Essentials Web ADF Elements 2.4 is NOT compatible with ArcGIS Server 10.  To use Geocortex Essentials Web ADF Elements with ArcGIS Server 10, you must upgrade to Geocortex Essentials 3.0 or higher.  The upcoming release of Geocortex Essentials 3.1 (currently in beta) will include all the new features and bug fixes from 2.4 and is compatible with ArcGIS Server 10.

Visit the Geocortex Support Center’s downloads section to grab the installer and read the documentation related to this release.  Be sure to consult the release notes for full details of everything that has changed.

During our company-wide weekly kickoff meeting, we’ve recently been wrapping up the meeting with “ten good things.”  These good things can be proposed by anyone in attendance, and are not limited to any subject in particular.  Ending the meeting with ten good things has the dual effect of bringing the meeting to a positive close as well as starting the week off on a positive note.

With that context, I’d like to share 10 good things about the upcoming INTERGEO conference I’ll be attending in Cologne, Germany next week.

1. Networking with an incredibly diverse group of geography professionals from all over the world.
2. Taking the ICE train from Utrecht to Cologne.
3. Jack Dangermond is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech on GIS and environment.
4. Der Kölner Dom.
5. Sharing exhibition space in ESRI Germany’s fantastic booth.
6. An opportunity to try Kölsch – Cologne’s specialty beer.
7. The conference theme – Knowledge and Action for Planet Earth.
8. Finally getting to see the famous Rhine River for myself.
9. Finding out from folks about the impact INSPIRE has changed the way they implement GIS.
10. The ESRI INTERGEO party!

There have been a number of enhancements to symbols and styles in ArcGIS 10, including searchable symbols.  Click here to read more from the ESRI Mapping Center blog.

I recently upgraded to a machine with Windows 7, and it took me a while to find where I needed to copy my sde connection information files from my old computer.  (These files are useful - if you copy them over, it means you don’t have to set up all of your sde connections again in ArcCatalog.)  Hopefully I can save someone else the trouble!

In Windows XP they were here:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog

In Windows 7 they are here:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\ESRI\Desktop10.0\ArcCatalog
If not there, try here:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\ESRI\Desktop10.0\ArcCatalog

In my inbox today from ESRI:

“An issue has been found with some uses of non-English Unicode data within the personal geodatabase when upgrading to ArcGIS 10. In some cases, the use of non-English Unicode characters in object names in the geodatabase are corrupted when the personal geodatabase (access file) is upgraded to an ArcGIS 10 geodatabase. This error corrupts the source data and is nonrecoverable. Further details and workarounds are provided in knowledge base article 38149.

A software patch is available for this issue. Download now.”

The recent release of Geocortex Essentials includes a major new development called Workflow.  Using workflow, administrators model their business processes by chaining together small units of work called “activities”. Built on Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation, Geocortex Essentials workflow allows administrators and application developers to build smart, successful systems that reduce the cost of getting things done.

Last week we updated the Geocortex Resource Center (http://resources.geocortex.com) with a huge amount of documentation supporting this new technology.  If you are a developer working with Geocortex Essentials 3.0, you’ll definitely want to take a look at the new workflow samples included in each of the APIs (JavaScript, Flex and Silverlight).  The samples will teach you the concepts you need to build workflow-based features or applications.

The REST API documentation has also received an upgrade and includes information about how Workflows are published on the server.

Finally, we’ve also released the help system for the desktop Geocortex Workflow Designer application.  In the downloads section of our Support Center, you will find a ZIP file containing this documentation, and a README file which describes how to deploy it so it may be launched from within Geocortex Workflow Designer.

Well, after a decade in historic Market Square and months of renovations to our new space, Latitude Geographics is in the process of being dismantled and moved from our motley assortment of current offices (seven in total over two floors!) to a much larger, unified space (all in one office) a few blocks away. For us, it’s a functional upgrade… not a vanity upgrade. It also happens to be a lovely space that I anticipate will accommodate future growth nicely. And like Market Square, it’s historic; it’s built around the original Fort Victoria well from which everyone drew their water long ago.

The last time I moved Latitude it was into Market Square from the small apartment I was living in during university. In other words, last time I had to move a workstation and desk. This, time it’s a different sort of endeavor–thankfully I have a team of folks who’ve led the charge coordinating moving the 55 of us.

As I write this, there is a hurricane of activity around me as furniture is being dismantled and carted away by movers. I have the use of my office a little longer because my trusty (others have less fawning words for it) $35 government surplus desk isn’t making the move with me.

Anyway, before I get all nostalgic on you, we’ve got a new address. Here it is:

200–1117 Wharf Street
Victoria, BC Canada V8W 1T7

We’ll post some photos of the new space once we’re moved in!

Late last week, our viewer team released the second iteration of the Geocortex Sample Flex Viewer (“GSFV”).  Although there remains some formal productization work for the GSFV, at version 2.0 the viewer has evolved well beyond our original vision of a “stopgap” viewer.   There’s been lots of traction on the initial release, and this release incorporates to some great feedback.  GSFV 2.0 uses Flex 4, and works with the ArcGIS API for Flex 2.0, and the Geocortex Essentials Flex API 2.0.

Among the architectural changes for the future, we have also made a few styling updates including some polish to the look and feel and functionality.

We encourage you to build applications using the GSFV 2.0 in anticipation of shifting to the fully productized Geocortex Viewer for Flex when it is available later this year.

The latest drop of Geocortex Essentials contains some quality improvements on our 2.X line.  Consult the release notes (which can be found on our Support Center alongside the download) to determine if this release contains resolutions to issues you are experiencing.

Since it is a maintenance-only release, there are no new features in 2.3.3.  It is intended to target ArcGIS Server 9.3/9.3.1 installations – our upcoming, major 3.0 release will be announced in a few days and will support ArcGIS Server 10.0.