Developing Web Applications with the Web ADF - Web controls  

GeoprocessingTask control



The GeoprocessingTask control utilizes resources in the GeoprocessingResourceManager to execute geoprocessing tasks.   The control interface is created dynamically at runtime based on the inputs required by the geoprocessing resource and task it will use.  The results, which include input and output parameters as well as progress messages, are provided as an ADO.NET DataSet to be displayed in a TaskResults control.  

Assembly: ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Tasks.dll
Class: ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Tasks.GeoprocessingTask
Using the GeoprocessingTask control
  1. Add supporting controls to the page

    In order to take full advantage of the GeoprocessingTask control, a number of supporting controls must be available.  Set up a Web application with MapResourceManager, GeoprocessingResourceManager, and Map controls using their discussion topics as a guide. Be sure to point the GeoprocessingResourceManager to an available ArcGIS Server-based geoprocessing resource. Add a TaskResults control using that control's discussion topic as a guide. At runtime, the TaskResults control displays the results of GeoprocessingTask. Users can then interact with the results to change map extent, display selected features, or re-execute the task. TaskResults also displays a message to the user while the task executes.

    The GeoprocessingResourceManager provides the information to the GeoprocessingTask control for creating the user interface. The geoprocessing resource inputs and behavior are determined by how the model was constructed. See the ArcGIS Server Help for information on creating and publishing geoprocessing models.

    To hide the geoprocessing input form at application startup and allow the user to call up the form from a link on the page, add a Menu control from the standard ASP.NET Navigation tools, and then add a TaskManager from the ArcGIS Web Controls toolbox group. If you want to display the geoprocessing form immediately upon application startup, you can skip adding these controls.

    Be sure to set the BuddyControl property of the TaskManager to the Menu control you added. Also set the Map property of the TaskResults control to the Map control you added, if you want users to see results highlighted on the map when selected.
  2. Add a GeoprocessingTask control

    In Visual Studio, display the prepared Web form in design mode, select the Toolbox and expand the ArcGIS Web Controls tab.  Drag and drop a GeoprocessingTask control into the TaskManager control, or if you did not add a TaskManager control, just drag the GeoprocessingTask onto the page. Your page might resemble the following layout, which was arranged using a table:

    GeoprocessingTask in Visual Studio design time

  3. Set the required properties for the GeoprocessingTask control

    In design mode, click the GeoprocessingTask, which displays the smart tag arrow in the upper right of the control. Click on this arrow to display the smart tag menu. This menu displays common properties that you can set, though others are available in the Properties window for the control.

    QueryAttributesTask smart tag menu

    a. Task results container : Click the first item in the smart tag menu to choose the Task Results container, or click the TaskResultsContainers property button in the Properties window. This brings up the BuddyControl collection editor. Click Add to add an item to the collection. With the TaskResults1 item selected, in the right side of the dialog, click the drop-down list and select the TaskResults control you added earlier. This is where the GeoprocessingTask places results that are found when the user executes a query.

    QueryAttributesTask result container dialog


    b. Set up the query: Click the second item in the smart tag menu for choosing the task definition, or click the TaskDefinition attribute button in the Properties window. This opens the TaskDefinition Editor dialog. In this dialog, select the GeoprocessingResourceManager added earlier. Then select the geoprocessing resource from the Resource drop-down list. Finally, select a Task from the third drop-down list. If no tasks are available, check that the geoprocessing service contains at least one valid tool. See the ArcGIS Server Help for more information on creating geoprocessing services.

    GeoprocessingTask definition editor

    c. Visibility of the QueryAttributesTask control: If you added Menu and TaskManager controls, you can have the query form not display at startup. Instead, the form displays when the user clicks the query link in the Menu control. To hide the query form at startup, select the QueryAttributesTask control, and in the Property window, set the Visible property to false.
  4. Setting the position of geoprocessing form

    By default, the GeoprocessingTask form appears in a floating window, which the user may drag to a new position within the web page. The opening position does not necessarily correspond to its position on the web page design form. If preferred, the geoprocessing form window may be fixed at a specific position.

    To fix the position of the form at a specific location, set the position style of the GeoprocessingTask or a containing control or DIV. To set the style, switch the Web page from Design view to HTML view in Visual Studio. Find the GeoprocessingTask in the page listing. Insert a style attribute within the control tag, and set its position properties to specific values. Use "position:absolute" to set the query form at an exact position on the page. Use "position:relative" to fix the position relative to its placement to other controls. In the following example, relative placement is used to ensure the query window is placed within a table cell:

    <td>
  <esriTasks:GeoprocessingTask style="position:relative;top:5px;left:0px;" 
    ID="GeoprocessingTask1" runat="server" ...>
  </esriTasks:GeoprocessingTask >
<td>

    When fixing the position of the geoprocessing form window, you may want to set the CloseButton, Draggable, ExpandCollapseButton, HeightResizable and WidthResizable properties to false to disallow modifying the query form. Setting Draggable to false disallows moving the form.
  5. Other properties for GeoprocessingTask

    Some of the properties that you may wish to modify for your application include:
    • Title: Displayed at the top of the geoprocessing form to the user. You should change this from the default, which is the ID of the control. Choose a title that describes what the geoprocessing task does. An example would be "Buffer points...".
    • AsyncStatusCheckInterval: Interval in seconds at which the application checks for the status of the task execution. Geoprocessing tasks are run asynchronously so that the user may perform other operations in the Web application while the task executes. As the task executes, the Web application retrieves the results on the next interval's check. These results may contain data and information indicating the progress of the task, as well as the final results of the task. These will be displayed as retrieved. You can adjust this property based on the expected time to execute the geoprocessing task. Default is 10 seconds.
    • FeatureSelectionColor: After task results display, and the user checks the box next to a feature, the feature is highlighted with this color on the map.
    • ShowDetailsInTable: Whether to display feature attributes in the results for each feature
  6. Using the GeoprocessingTask in the web application

    If a TaskManager and Menu controls are used to bring up the geoprocessing task form, the user clicks on the link for the geoprocessing task. This displays the geoprocessing entry form. The number and format of form entry items depends on the design of the geoprocessing model. The following is one example of a geoprocessing input form, but the form will vary considerably based on the model used.

    Example of GeoprocessingTask user entry form

    The user interacts with the form to enter required values, then clicks Submit. In the above example, the user activates the add-point tool to click on the map to add points, then sets the buffer distance before submitting the form.

    The results are displayed as they are retrieved in the TaskResults control output. See TaskResults for a discussion and examples of using the results from a task.

 

Members

Properties

  The following table provides a list of properties of interest.  For complete reference information, see the GeoprocessingTask control in the library reference section.

Property Name  Type Description
AsyncStatusCheckInterval int The interval in milliseconds between job status checks for asynchronous geoprocessing tasks.
DrawResultsOnMapServer bool Whether results can be drawn on map server if geoprocessing resource has a map server available.
FeatureSelectionColor Color The Color of selected features.
HideOnSubmit bool Whether to hide the task dialog on submit.
ListOutputFeatures bool Whether the features of output layers will be listed. Only applicable if features are drawn on the web tier. If DrawResultsOnMapServer is true and a result map server is available, the drawn features will not be listed under the output layer.
MaxFileUploadSize int The maximum file upload size in MB for GPDataFile parameter support and for uploading result information for asynchronous tasks.
NavigationPath string The path to the task as it would appear in a hierarchical data control buddied to the task's TaskManager.
ShowFieldAttributes bool Whether the results of this task will have the field attributes.
ShowLegend bool Whether the results of this task will have a legend. Legend is only available if GroupResultsByTable is true.
TaskDefinition string The task in the geoprocessing resource that this control works with.
TaskResultsContainers BuddyControl Collection The controls in which results from this task are displayed.
VirtualDirectory string The relative path to the virtual directory in which files can be written, such as " /arcgisoutput"

 

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