Configuring tasks
You define the GIS functionality in your Web applications by selecting and configuring tasks. Tasks encapsulate specific functionality for your application, such as querying or editing. Manager includes the following set of tasks that initially populates the list of available tasks:
- Editor task
- Find Address task
- Geoprocessing task
- Print task
- Query Attributes task
- Search Attributes task
The Editor and Geoprocessing tasks are valid only with ArcGIS Server services. Other tasks can work with multiple types of services. For example, the Search Attributes task can search the attributes of layers from either ArcGIS Server or ArcIMS.
You can also use the developer libraries included with the Web ADF to create custom tasks. See the discussion Working with tasks in the developer help for more instructions.
Adding tasks in Manager
When you create or edit a Web application in Manager, a wizard panel is included specifically for the purpose of adding and editing tasks. Click the Add Task link on this panel to select the task you want. You'll see all the out-of-the-box tasks, as well as any custom tasks that your developers might have created and added to the Manager interface.
Some tasks require that you define supporting services in order for them to run. For example, the Find Address task requires you to choose an existing ArcGIS Server geocoding service, an ArcIMS service enabled for geocoding, or the Bing Maps address locator. You can select these services using the Supporting Services link.
For each task that you add to your application, you can click the Configure button to customize the specific look and behavior of the task. In many cases, this involves selecting the layers and fields that you want the task to work with. If you want to see field aliases appear in the task, you can configure this in the layer properties of the source map document or in Manager. See Layer properties available in Manager for more about setting field aliases in Manager.
The rest of the topics in this book describe the available tasks in more detail.