Some applications that you build might not require the advanced functionality of the Web Application Developer Framework (ADF)—for example, embedding a map into a non-geographic information system (GIS) Web application or creating an overlay of your data on an online basemap. These scenarios, sometimes called mashups, are supported by Representational State Transfer (REST) and JavaScript application programming interfaces (APIs) that have been added to ArcGIS Server at version 9.3.
These applications consist of client-side JavaScript and related dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). No server-side code (for example, ASP.NET, and so on) is required for these applications, although it is possible to use server-side logic for additional functionality. The APIs use online JavaScript libraries hosted by ESRI, making it easier to deploy the application.
You can build a JavaScript API application without installing ESRI software. For more information, see the ArcGIS Resource Center to access the appropriate JavaScript API outlined as follows:
- The ArcGIS JavaScript API offers a browser based interface to build mapping applications and do analysis. You can fuse data sources from different servers, perform identify and find operations, add points of interest, and add markup graphics.
- The ArcGIS JavaScript Extension for Bing Maps displays your ArcGIS Server maps over the Microsoft's Bing Maps basemaps. You can do query and geoprocessing tasks on your services and work with the results as VEShapes. You can also do geocoding operations and view the results on the basemap.
- The ArcGIS JavaScript Extension for the Google Maps API integrates your maps with the Google Maps base layers. You can do query and geoprocessing tasks on your services and work with the results as features. You can also publish your content as Google Mapplets.
These APIs use the ArcGIS Server REST API to access information about your services. For more information, see Working with the REST API. ArcGIS Server deployments expose information about their services through a series of uniform resource locators (URLs) for convenient access by developers. The service information and the corresponding URLs are also available through a visual interface called the Services Explorer.