Day 1 Building Mashups Using The ArcGIS JavaScript API’s At The ESRI Developer Summit 2008

This was another session I was really looking forward to. The new ArcGIS JavaScript API is a new API that has been made available in ArcGIS 9.3. The API allows you to embed tasks and maps in your application.

The ArcGIS JavaScript API is built on top of the DOJO framework. It allows you to use a number tasks which includes queries, locate, find and identify.

Some of my notes from this session is below:

The ArcGIS JavaScript API will be hosted by ESRI. This has advantages which will allow a shorter release cycle for updates and bug fixes. The ArcGIS JavaScript API can also be hosted by your organisation. This would be for enterprise use where you are not allowed access out of the network.

The ArcGIS JavaScript API supports a really nice symbology model which is very powerful on the client side. Some of the symbology as part of the API includes:

Simple marker
Picture marker
Text marker
Simple line
Simple fill line

The ArcGIS JavaScript API comes as three API’s. One is for ArcGIS Server while the other two are for Google Maps and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth.

There is support for 2D and 3D when using the JavaScript extension for Microsoft Virtual Earth. Only tiled maps are supported when using this extension. Dynamic maps are not supported.

Using the JavaScript extension for Google Maps, tiled and dynamic maps are supported.

This was a good session giving us an insight into the ArcGIS JavaScript API which will be available in ArcGIS 9.3. I think this combined with the REST API will be very powerful.