Creating beautiful cartographic map layouts can be a difficult journey. Titles, fonts, and picking a north arrow that matches your design (much like your socks matching your belt). Yeah, those difficult decisions. Let’s not forget the accessibility of our design as well. Forgetting accessibility during the design process is like forgetting the map title - it shouldn’t happen. Accessibility should be part of the design process, not an afterthought. This will drastically reduce the time needed to remediate at the end and allows more people to enjoy your map. And yes, it’s also a legal requiremen ..read more

Initially scheduled for release in June, Esri was able to release ArcGIS Pro 3.0 with a few days to spare. With the Esri User Conference just around the corner, I’m sure it will get lots of attention on the UC’s big stage. There isn’t an official announcement of the release yet, but with the ArcGIS Pro update service going offline for a few hours, it seemed like something big was happening - now we know. Ready to Upgrade to ArcGIS Pro 3.0 To upgrade to ArcGIS Pro 3.0, just open the currently installed version and you will be prompted that an upgrade is available. It doesn’t specify the signifi ..read more

The location of people and devices is handy if you want to display local weather, show a map, get directions, or even tweak advertisements by region. These examples of GeoLocation are just the tip of the iceberg, but you get the idea - location, location, location. Web browsers and javascript started supporting geolocation back in 2009 (Firefox v3.5). This happened with very little fanfare since very few people owned smartphones, and tracking user location wasn’t big business (yet). Today, we assume our phone knows where we are, where we are going, where the device is, and if we are near them ..read more

The investigation continues into the Log4j vulnerability (AKA Log4Shell) as CVE-2021-44228 was disclosed on December 9, 2021, and related CVE’s (2021-45046, 2021-4104) were disclosed on December 14, 2021. Is ArcGIS Software at Risk? Like many enterprise software packages, ArcGIS server software uses the OpenSource Log4j module - so regardless if exploitable, take all mitigation measures available. As of writing, no exploits have been identified with ArcGIS products. However, closing the potential vulnerability is still best practice and highly recommended. Errr, this is more than a recommendat ..read more

ArcGIS Pro has been able to store favorites since the 2.x releases. How this is managed in Pro has changed slightly over the years. Well, I guess it started with no favorites, but we don’t like to talk about Pro 1.x so let’s just pretend it never happened. If you have corporate database connections or projection files, setting this up for users makes day-to-day GIS’ing a little easier. A Short History of Favorites Setting favorites in ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap/Catalog) was a mixed bag of files and locations: database connections could be copied into your roaming profile folder; Custom/favorite pr ..read more

Public web content in Ontario must meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 AA as of January 1, 2021. This shouldn’t be a shock as the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) has been around since 2005 and is intended to “reduce and remove barriers for people with disabilities so that Ontario can become more accessible and inclusive for everyone”. Sounds great, no arguments here. Although how are organizations in Ontario doing 16 years later with new compliance rules in effect? And what does AODA/WCAG really mean when it comes to accessibility? Let’s take a quick l ..read more

It’s the end of an era. After 2 decades, ArcMap is set to retire. Sure there are still six more years of support, but ArcGIS 10.8.1 is the final release for good old ArcMap (ArcGIS Desktop). Esri is saying it for realzies this time. Sure, it’s been said for years: I remember when 10.3 was going the last release until it wasn’t. But the recent announcement on ArcGIS Enterprise removing ArcMap publishing support is the nail in the coffin. This is it, and this time they mean it. Why Retire ArcMap Right Now Well, you need to wait until a larger percentage of people have moved to ArcGIS Pro before ..read more

In a recent post, we discussed the Canadian Government’s open platform to share Meteorological data, MSC GeoMet. MSC GeoMet provides public access to the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) data via interoperable web services and application programming interfaces (API). Web Map Services GeoMet provides direct access to meteorological data via Web Map Services. If you aren’t familiar with Web Map Services (WMS), it is a standard protocol for serving georeferenced maps over the Internet. These services are easily consumed in many web map libra ..read more

It’s not just technology and underwear that change frequently, software requirements and Terms of Service (TOS) can change quickly too. Even if you don’t do anything, external factors can turn your app into 404 without warning. This can happen for many reasons, including when changes come to the APIs we use. Don’t worry, you are just an API Key away from success in some cases. What API Key? Do I need one? Let’s dive in. What API Key? The ArcGIS JavaScript API has been around for a long time. Since the beginning, there has always been free (not Open) access to the JavaScript API, and additional ..read more

When browsing the Canadian weather website the other day I was surprised to read the bold notice “New Weather Radar Map”. I then scrolled down to find a simple, clean, easy-to-use Weather Radar map. Thank you ECCC/MSC (AKA Canadian NOAA)! New Weather Radar Map This map is a huge improvement over the old GIFs. Now we have a single mosaic image, GIS data in a WMS API, an actual ‘map’, and accessible navigation too. The framework appears to use Vue with the OpenLayers API in a module called VueLayers. VueLayers is best described by their tagline “Web map Vue components with the power of OpenLayer ..read more