ArcGIS Web AppBuilder receives major widget updates

July 5, 2017 - By Olivia Harne

Major changes have been added to the ArcGIS Web AppBuilder in its June 2017 update, in the form of new widgets. For those who use the AppBuilder for creating applications rather than using ArcGIS for Developers, widgets serve as a mainstay for mapping application projects.

For the summer update, eight new core widgets are now available for users. Here’s a quick overview of what’s new.

GIS developers focused on aesthetic aspects of the new update will find a lot of use out of the new basemap gallery widget. Rather than the standard set of initial maps that Esri provides, organizations are now capable of setting up a variety of basemaps of their own. This could work concurrently with the design aspects of ArcGIS for Photoshop and Illustrator.

An infographic feature also provides graphic templates that allow for greater data visualization, with a variety of graphs spanning from simplistic number representations to more complicated charts.

Additionally, the new “dashboard” theme can take widgets such as the basemap gallery and infographic widgets and display them simultaneously, with the added ability for users to format the size and arrangement of how they’re displayed.

A screenshot of the ArcGIS infographic widget.

For GIS professionals working more with data analytics, a conversion widget enables users to input coordinates in one system and output to another. Some of the coordinate conversions listed:

Global Area Reference System (GARS)
Degree-based formats (DDM, DMS, and DD)
Military Grid Reference System (MGRS)
United States National Grid (USNG)
World Geographic Reference System (GEOREF)
Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM)

The new suitability modeler also helps analysts visualize location susceptibility based off of available data, and can project the likelihood of future occurrences in selected areas.

An in-depth overview of all eight widgets, alongside some general enhancements for the ArcGIS summer 2017 update, is available here.

Olivia Harne is a writer, researcher and geographer.