Which ESRI Javascript API version should you use for your next mapping app? I wish it were as simple as just using the most up to date version. And maybe it will be for your situation. But there are a few considerations to address before pushing ahead. Start With Your Goal Always start with your …
Read more “Which ESRI Javascript API Version to Use – 3.x vs 4.x”
I spent some time today dealing with a layer of data that was added to an ESRI REST service. The service layers are zero base indexed which means you can reference them based on their position relative to each other. The first layer is identified at position zero while the second is 1, the third …
In his famous lectures on creativity, John Cleese says that if you play around with a problem and put off calling it done for a while, you’ll often come up with a better solution than if you simply took the first solution that came to you. Tinkering with an idea or a map or a …
What is an Object? In Javascript an object is simply a container or store of properties that are related to what the object is modeling. These properties can be primitive data types, other objects or functions. Here’s an example of an empty object with no properties: const furBearingTrout = {}; I’ve used object literal notation …
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Comments aren’t part of the official JSON specification. According to an old (2012) Google Plus post by Douglas Crockford, he removed them to preserve interoperability. But that same post suggests you can still use comments so long as you remove them through minification before parsing. There are a few other ways to handle JSON comments …
The great thing about using Node streams in Gulp is that you don’t have to keep opening and closing files for each task like in Grunt. This lack of i/o overhead makes running a series of tasks very fast.
I was always bothered by how long Grunt took to run through all my tasks and complete my build. It would take 10+ seconds to finish and I would have to sit there waiting to check my latest edits. It can be really hard to develop a piece of code when you are constantly halting your flow.
Having worked with both the ArcGIS Silverlight and Javascript APIs I have to say Javascript has been much more fun. There is just something about working on the front end of a web map and being able to have it do so many amazing things. Here are my top five reasons I enjoy working with …
Read more “Five Things I Love About the ESRI Javascript API”
Building a mapping application with ESRI’s Javascript API is a lot of fun. But it can also be a real pain. Here are five things that absolutely drive me crazy when writing an ArcGIS Javascript map. 1. It is based on Dojo. It’s probably just my lack of Javascript programming sophistication but I find Dojo …