Extend the Geocortex Viewer for HTML5

The Geocortex Viewer for HTML5 is a framework for creating clean and effective map viewers for a wide variety of devices—smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers—and browsers. Because the Geocortex Viewer for HTML5 uses the same code base across different platforms, you do not need to invest in extensive platform-specific development. Instead, much of a viewer's appearance and interaction across different platforms are handled by configuration files and CSS files.

Geocortex HTML5 viewers are built with modules. Modularization facilitates customization—modules can be removed, swapped, and reconfigured as needed to build the set of features and functions you want in a viewer.

To facilitate the development of modules, the Geocortex HTML5 Framework uses a loosely coupled development style. Each module typically has no explicit dependencies on other modules, and the presence or absence of a particular module generally does not negatively affect the behavior of any other module.

An HTML5 viewer's user interface is built of components called views. Views are configurable user interface components associated with modules that can be composed and rearranged at will.

The Geocortex Viewer for HTML5 uses an Application object to model an application in the browser. Rather than use a multitude of global variables and methods to hold state and perform work, viewer applications hold their state and implementation in an instance of the Application object. Applications have a simple and well defined life cycle.

Because of their ability to run on different platforms, viewer applications should be written with performance and versatility in mind. For example, you should avoid expensive operations such as DOM querying or repeated HTTP requests. You should also avoid any task that might cause excessive work or that might prevent the user from interacting with the application.

Mobile devices come in many shapes and sizes, are not always connected to the Internet, and often run on batteries. It is therefore important to keep device and platform constraints in mind when developing and configuring HTML5 applications.

Developing a Web Mapping Application

To help you develop a web mapping application using the Geocortex HTML5 Framework, the Geocortex Viewer for HTML5 zip file includes a QuickStart folder containing two sample modules that you can build and then load into the Geocortex Viewer for HTML5. Complete instructions are included in the Readme.md file.

The section Loading modules in the Viewer in the readme file indicates that the compiled output should be copied into the Resources/Compiled folder. This refers to the location inetpub/wwwroot/Html5Viewer/Resources/Compiled on the server where Essentials is installed.

In addition, the following resource are included in Geocortex Developer Help:

Point the QuickStart Viewer to a Different Site

By default, the QuickStart Viewer points to the World Cities site.

To point the QuickStart Viewer to a different site:

  1. Open the configuration files in a text editor.

    The configuration files are in a subfolder of the Web folder that you deployed to your web server:

    Web/Resources/Config/Default

  2. In each configuration file, update the Site Module's siteUri property to point to your site. For example:

    "siteUri": "http://myserver.com/Geocortex/Essentials/REST/sites/MySite"

  3. Save the configuration files.

  4. To test the three configurations, launch each one in a browser.