New sample shows how to use the free GeoIP service to find the location and show the lat/lon of the visitor on a map. Here is the link to the sample : http://sathyaprasad.appspot.com/geoip.html

If you go to my homepage http://sathyaprasad.appspot.com you can see how I have used the smaller version of the sample inside of a page using an iframe to locate the website visitors. Feel free to copy the code and use it in your site.

Posted a new sample showing how to consume ArGIS Services (dynamic and cached) using OpenLayers API.

Check it out: http://sathyaprasad.appspot.com/openlayers.html

Today I encounterd a strange error-

I started the ArcGIS Manager Service to use the Restful Services Directory and to my surprise it did not work. I have installed ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 for a few weeks now and was working fine.

I tried the following url’s:

http://localhost:8399/arcgis/rest – restful services direcoty – did not work

http://localhost:8399/arcgis/services?wsdl – services catalog soap end point – did not work

http://localhost:8399 – directory listing of  ”C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\java\web_output” - did not work

Wearing my trouble shooting hat, I checked the log files at location: “C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\java\manager\service\logs“

1. manager_stderr.txt – did not indicate any issues

2. managerappserver0.log – here I found the following error:

Jun 3, 2009 12:46:00 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer await
SEVERE: StandardServer.await: create[8300]:
java.net.BindException: Address already in use: JVM_Bind
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketBind(Native Method)
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.bind(PlainSocketImpl.java:359)
at java.net.ServerSocket.bind(ServerSocket.java:319)
at java.net.ServerSocket.(ServerSocket.java:185)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.await(StandardServer.java:346)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.await(Catalina.java:600)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:560)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:271)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:409)


The error message indicates that port 8300 was blocked/taken in my machine.

The cuplrit was the Aptana IDE which was open and the port 8300 was used up.

Digging deeper: Aptana IDE is bundled with the Jaxer support. Jaxer Console for internal Jaxer Server uses a free port between 8300-8500. It so happened that Since ArcGIS Server Manager was not yet started when I opened Aptana IDE, it used the 8300. So the order matters. Could’nt find a simple way to change the port range within Aptana. This could be fodder for a different post.

Incase you are wondering why is ArcGIS Server Manager using port 8300 (the well known ports are 8399 and 8099) then the answer is here “C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\java\manager\service\tomcat\managerappserver\conf\server.xml”. The manager appserver (tomcat) uses port 8300 as shutdown port. And yes, you can edit shutdown port from 8300 to 8299 (or any other unique port)  and restart the ArcGIS Server Manager service.

Easier Solution would be to close Aptana IDE. Restart ArcGIS Server Manager (manager.exe) service and then open Aptana IDE.

Voila, all back to normal … back to work now …

Let me know if anyone else had the same issue.

Note: This post is not applicable to ArcGIS Server .Net

I recently saw that there has been lots of discussion on the custom rest service legend sample posted on the code gallery in terms of getting the sample up and running successfully. If you have no clue on what I am talking about, here is the link.

This post should help you get the sample running in no time (almost):

I am using Eclipse (screen-shots show version 3.4/Ganymede, 3.3/Europa should work as well) as my IDE and ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 Java ADF libraries.

1. Download the sample on to the disk:

The sample comes with “json.jar” library, as shown in the screen-shot here:

2. Create a new project in eclipse

3. Import the source files and web-inf folder from the sample to the project

As you see, IDE complains that there are missing imports. We are going to fix them in step 4

4. Copy (drag and drop) the following libraries into the project from the Web ADF library collection
Note: You do not need ArcGIS Server to run this sample, just the Java Web ADF libraries is good. You can copy the required libraries from other machine if needed

After completing steps 3 and 4 you project should look like:

5. Run the web app (Assumption is that you have eclipse configured with web server like tomcat or jetty. I am using tomcat 6)

6. Optionally, you can export this into a war file for deployment

Just posted a new sample on code gallery. This sample was demoed in the devsummit 2009 session and as promised I have upload a zip file with samples, documentation and source file.

Here are quick links to the sample :

Resource Center – Code Gallery Post

View it live link

Rate the sample and post any comments directly at that site or here in my blog. Based on the comments I will add more functionality to the infoTip class.

Few common scenarios when you are working with the graphics layer (@ version 1.3) in the ArcGIS Server JS API

1. map.graphics returns the graphics layer
2. map.graphics.graphics returns the array of graphic elements (geometry, symbol, attribute, infotemplate) added to the graphics layer

To remove all graphic elements in the graphic layer
map.graphics.clear();

To show/hide specific graphic element
map.graphics.graphics[index].show();
map.graphics.graphics[index].hide();

To check if any specific graphic element is being shown or not:
// 'none' is hidden and 'block' is visible
map.graphics.graphics[index].getDojoShape().rawNode.style.display

Loop through all the graphic elements
var graphics = map.graphics.graphics;
for (var i=0; i< graphics.length; i++)
{
// do something with graphics[i]
}

even better


dojo.forEach(map.graphics.graphics, "console.log(item.getDojoShape().rawNode.style.display)");
//or
dojo.forEach(map.graphics.graphics, "console.log(item,index,array)");
//or
dojo.forEach(map.graphics.graphics, function(item){//item is a graphic element });


Note: @version 1.4 you will have ability to add multiple graphics layers (in addition to the default graphics layer) and can control the stack order (z-index).

Just posted a blog entry on the ArcGIS Server Blog. Check it out.

Blog talks about how to use Dojo Dijits – BorderContainer (dijit.layout.BorderContainer) and ContentPane (dijit.layout.ContentPane) to design your layouts for application. I have created a bunch of sample layouts with most of the commonly used layouts, check out the links below.

You an try the live sample at: http://serverapps.esri.com/templates/index.html

You can download the samples at: Resource Center Code Gallery

Here is a list of Javascript and Dojo learning resources (thanks Grayson) that I use. If you know of any good links, add in a comment and I will update the post.

Javascript

Essential Javascript – A Javascript Tutorial

http://www.comptechdoc.org/independent/web/cgi/javamanual/

http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/default.asp

http://javascript.crockford.com/

Dojo

http://dojotoolkit.org/key-links

Dojo Feature Explorer

http://www.sitepen.com/labs/dojo.php

http://archive.dojotoolkit.org/nightly/checkout/ (Great source for learning how to use dijits and dojox widgets, check out the tests folder)

http://www.roseindia.net/dojo/

10 helpings of Dojo goodness

This post talks about how to go about minifying the javascript and css files directly from your IDE (Eclipse and Netbeans) using the YUICompressor and YUIAnt jar files.

Before we look into more specifics you will have to download these two:
1. YUICompression jar from the Yahoo developer site, here are the links : More Info – Download
2. YUIAnt jar file from this link

For Netbeans: (version tested 6.5)

For web applications that you want to build with compressed js/css files add the folloing xml to the build.xml for the project, overiding the “-pre-dist” ant target which is not currently configured by default in netbeans.

<project name="YUICompression" default="default" basedir=".">
<description>Builds, tests, and runs the project YUICompression.</description>
<import file="nbproject/build-impl.xml"/>

<target name="-pre-dist" >
<condition property="dont.do.compression">
<istrue value="${auxiliary.org-netbeans-modules-web-client-tools-api.clientdebug}"/>
</condition>
<antcall target="-do-compression"/>
</target>
<target name="-do-compression" unless="dont.do.compression" >
<echo level="info" message="Compressing JavaScript and CSS files...." />
<path id="yuicompressor.classpath">
<fileset dir="${build.dir}/web/WEB-INF/lib">
<include name="YUIAnt.jar"/>
<include name="yuicompressor-2.4.2.jar"/>
</fileset>
</path>
<taskdef name="yuicompress" classname="com.yahoo.platform.yui.compressor.YUICompressTask" >
<classpath>
<path refid="yuicompressor.classpath"/>
</classpath>
</taskdef>
<yuicompress linebreak="16000" warn="false" munge="no" preserveallsemicolons="true"
outputfolder="${basedir}/${build.web.dir}" >
<fileset dir="${basedir}/web" excludes="" >
<include name="**/*.js" />
<include name="**/*.css" />
</fileset>
</yuicompress>
<echo level="info" message="Compression Complete" />
</target>
</project>

Make sure to edit the name/version of the jar files being used. You can also choose to set includes and excludes for the files you do not want to minify. Compression only takes place if client side debugging is configured off.

When you build and run the project the custom ant task will get called and the minified files will be present in the WAR file that gets deployed.

For Eclipse (version tested on 3.3.1/Europa) :

Eclipse build process for the web applications is not exposed directly in the IDE. However its possible to have custom ant build files to run inside of a web application. Taking this approach here is a sample build file for minifying the .js and .css files in the web application.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="YUICompression" basedir=".">
<target name="default" description="Minifiy a set of files">
<taskdef name="yuicompress" classname="com.yahoo.platform.yui.compressor.YUICompressTask">
<classpath>
<pathelement path="${basedir}/WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/yuicompressor-2.4.2.jar" />
<pathelement path="${basedir}/WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/YUIAnt.jar" />
</classpath>
</taskdef>
<yuicompress linebreak="16000" warn="false" munge="no" preserveallsemicolons="true"
outputfolder="${basedir}/WebContent">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/WebContent" >
<include name="**/*.js" />
<include name="**/*.css" />
</fileset>
</yuicompress>
</target>
</project>

Steps:
1. Copy over the two jar files into the library (WebContent/Web-INF/lib)
2. Create a new file at the root level of your web app and call it build.xml

3. Paste the above xml snippet into build .xml
4. Edit the version number and/or name of the jar files referenced if needed
5. Right click on the build.xml file and run as “Ant build”

6. In the output view observe that the build is running

7. Open the .js and .css files now you should see them minified.

References used:
Neil’s netBeans Stuff
Minifying JS/CSS

Recently I installed and successfully deployed a ESRI ArcGIS Server based Java Web Mapping application on Jetty 6.1.14

Though Jetty is not officially supported deployment container, since its standards based it works without any issues.

For starters, if you are new to Jetty or if you are looking for an alternative to Tomcat find out more on Jetty at http://www.mortbay.org/jetty/

Steps to deploy web mapping application:

1. Download and install Jetty 6.x version on to the machine.

2. Export war file either from Manager or Eclipse

3. Navigate to <jetty root >\webapps folder and drop the war file

4. Start jetty in command line: 

java -jar etc\jetty.xml 1>logs/out.log 2>logs/err.log

or create a batch file and paste the above line in the batch file

5. Access the webapplication at: http://localhost:8080/<web app name>

For folks looking into using Jetty with Eclipse, you will have to install a plugin. Here is a good link showing how to go about it : http://docs.codehaus.org/display/JETTY/Web+Tooling+Support