ArcGIS Explorer 900 – first look, Part 1

Installation of ArcGIS Explorer (AGX) took about 3-4 minutes on my Vista laptop. During installation I have noticed it is doing something in addition to usual steps. It was scanning thru assemblies.
After installation there are two applications in ArcGIS Explorer program group:

• Application Configuration Manager
• ArcGIS Explorer

Application Configuration Manager
After start of Application Configuration Manager (ACM) first dialog requires you to create new configuration or add an existing one.


If new is selected it must be name and file location specified. Configuration is saved as *.ncfg file.



After configuration you have options to Preview or Modify the application. When modifying a configuration settings, there are 5 main areas –General, Display, Customizations, Add-ins and Custom Resources. More interesting group is the Customizations. Here one can enable or disable certain features on the UI including the context menus as well.



For use of the resources other than ESRI’s on Custom Resources group under Choose Service you can specify your own address locator, routing or place finding service.


After configuring AGX is now running. One of the big news for this release is new UI. This is the Ribbon implementation and I guess it will cause a lot of discussion. I know a several people how just can’t stand it but i think it’s inevitable and it is becoming standard UI feature, at least on PC.

Main new features of AGX 900 are:

• Presentation mode
• 2D display mode
• Bing base maps
• Support for all coordinate systems from ArcGIS

It is getting late, more to come very soon. In next post I’ll describe new features with more details.