Spatial Editing Introduction

Editing ESRI GeoDatabases

Editing of ESRI GeoDatabases was not previously supported by the spatial editing extension.

If you are editing a database with Weave that has been enabled as a GeoDatabase then it is likely that the GeoDatabase metadata managed by ArcGis is now out of sync and this can result in the inability to create new records with ArcGis.

There is a hotfix available for the 2.5.27, 2.5.28 and 2.5.29 releases of Weave that resolves the issue (currently only for SQL Server) and should be applied as soon as possible, http://downloads.cohga.com/weave/.

The hotfix will stop the issue from occurring in the future but will not repair any feature datasets that are already out of sync, and additionally the hotfix will now make it more likely that Weave will no longer be able to create new records (since Weave now follows the same process as ArcGis when creating records).

To repair any feature datasets that have been edited with Weave they will need to be copied to a new feature dataset, the old feature dataset deleted, and the new feature dataset renamed to replace the old broken feature dataset (as this will reset the metadata for the feature dataset).

Update:

Postgis/Postgres and Oracle are not supported for editing an ESRI GeoDatabase at all, and in fact GeoDatabase enabling the database may make them unavailable to Weave as a spatial engine completely.

The spatial editing extension for Weave provides a means to edit geometry and attributes for an entity.

Features:

Simple to setup for basic operation
Configure the id, label and entity and Weave will do the rest.
Customisable for advanced operation
Refine geometry setting and input parameters, and provide pre-defined lists of values for input.
Supports editing on an entity with multiple spatial layers
A single entity that is composed of separate point, line and/or polygon tables is transparently handled by Weave.
Creation and updating on an entity in the client can be initiated from URL parameters
The Weave client can be started with parameters in the URL to immediately begin the editing process for a specific entity for the user.
Auditing of editing operations
Custom auditing can be setup to write a new log records to a database table for each edit operation performed by a user.
Snapping of geometry
Configurable snapping is available to help with drawing geometry.
I18n support
All of the text/labels for the editing components can be customized for multiple languages or even just having the default text changed.
"Identity" columns
It's possible to specify that an attribute for a new record is based on incrementing the previous highest value of the column, or that the column will be automatically generated by the underlying database system.
Read-only columns
It's possible to specify that an attribute can be displayed but not changed (readonly), can only be changed when the entity is created (readonlyonupdate) or can only be changed when an entity is updated (readonlyoncreate).
Hidden columns
It's possible to specify attributes that aren't visible to the user but are still written when an edit is performed, using either a fixed value or one of a number of supported functions.
Formula columns
It's possible to specify a number of in-built formulas as the value for a column, including things like userid(), datetime(), entity(), area() and length(). These can be used for both the spatial and audit tables.
Restrictions on the number and types of geometry
Geometry input can be constrained to indicate a minimum and maximum number of geometries that can be entered when creating an entity and the types of geometries can be specified.
Customization of client view
The display of the input panel can be customized via the configuration. Some things that can be customized are if text and/or icons are display in buttons, which buttons are displayed (hiding the polygon button for example) and the locations of some of the buttons.

Limitations:

Only attributes directly attached to the spatial table can be edited
Weave will only write to the spatial table when editing an entity, currently having some attributes written to the spatial table and other attributes written to separate database tables is not supported. Audit tables may provide enough functionality to support the required workflow though.
Spatial mapper for entity must have <dynamic> set to true and <cache> set to false
But this is generally the case for any entity that can have its underlying data altered on the fly.
A database table will require a primary key
If you're editing data in a database and are unable to edit the table, ensure that it has a primary key.
Does not support ESRI GeoDatabase enabled databases
Once you've edited a table with Weave the objectid generation might get out of sync with ArcGIS and stop you from being able to edit the table within ArcGIS. Non-geodatabase enabled databases are fine. Update: 2.5.27.14, 2.5.28.10 and 2.5.29.4 now support GeoDatabases editing on SQL Server (other databases to be supported in the future). Note: Versioned, Archived and Edit Tracking require special attention to setup in Weave, ensure you're familiar with these before attempting to editing them in Weave, and Branch Versioning is not supported at all.

Installation

Currently, the Weave editing sub-system is provided as a single bundle, com.cohga.spatial.edit. This bundle must be copied to the weave\platform\plugins directory and the server restarted for it to be available.

Requirements

Configuring Entities

Before you can edit an entity there are some criteria that need to be met.

The entity id must be unique within a spatial table. If an entity is composed of multiple spatial tables then it may be the case that the id may not be unique across all of the tables. If for example the entity is composed of more than one geometry type and the underlying spatial engine (e.g. ArcSDE, shapefiles) does not support different geometries in a single table, then the geometry would need to be spread over more than one table. In this situation, the entity id would have to be the same in all of the spatial tables, but it must at least be unique within each table. This is the only way that Weave can determine which row in the table that it needs to update as Weave determines which spatial table to update based on the geometry type stored in the spatial table.

The editing of multiple spatial tables is only fully supported when a different geometry type is stored in each table. That is, if an entity is linked to more than one spatial table then each spatial table should contain a different geometry type (point, line or polygon). This is so that Weave knows which table to write the appropriate geometries to. For example, if you were to have an entity linked to two spatial tables, both containing polygon geometry, then when an edit is submitted that contains a polygon, Weave would not know which table the geometry was supposed to be added to or updated in.

In the case of an entity represented by multiple spatial tables, the schemas for the tables should all be the same. This is a requirement because the same attribute values will be written to each table when an edit is submitted that contains different geometry types.

Spatial engines that do not differentiate between geometry types, (i.e. the spatial table stores "geometry" and not specifically points, lines or polygons) are not currently supported in multi-table configurations. This is because in these cases, Weave cannot determine which table to write the geometry to (they are supported in single table configurations). This may change in the future.

Additionally, the spatial mapping associated with any entities that are to be edited should be configured to be dynamic, see Spatial Mapper.

Configuration

Client Edit Plugin

Part of the client side editing sub-system is implemented as a 'plugin' for the map view, so the first thing that needs to be done when enabling the editing sub-system is to register the edit plugin with the map view in the client configuration.

Adding edit plugin to client

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<config xmlns="urn:com.cohga.server.config#1.0" xmlns:client="urn:com.cohga.html.client#1.0">

  <client:config id="edit">
    <!-- more config items here -->

    <view id="com.cohga.html.client.map.mapView">
      <label>Map</label>
      <location>center</location>

      <!-- Register the edit plugin with the map view -->
      <plugin id="weave.edit"/>

      <!-- map config items here -->
    </view>

    <!-- more config items here -->
  </client:config>

</config>

The provides the edit sub-system with a hook into the map view so that it can provide access to the editing layer.

Client Edit View

When performing an edit a view panel is required to enter/change the attributes associated with the entity being edited. This view is provided by the com.cohga.client.panel.edit view and so also needs to be added to the client configuration.

Adding edit view to client

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<config xmlns="urn:com.cohga.server.config#1.0" xmlns:client="urn:com.cohga.html.client#1.0">

  <client:config id="edit">
    <!-- more config items here -->

    <!-- Add the Edit panel to the client -->
    <view id="com.cohga.client.panel.edit">
      <label>Edit</label>
      <location>west</location>
    </view>

    <view id="com.cohga.html.client.map.mapView">
      <label>Map</label>
      <location>center</location>

      <!-- Register the edit plugin with the map view -->
      <plugin id="weave.edit"/>

      <!-- more config items here -->
    </view>

    <!-- more config items here -->
  </client:config>

</config>

This view also provides the actions required to initiate editing and the tools required to perform the spatial edit operations.

Client panel buttons

name	description

name	description
Create	Insert a new entity. Will be disabled if editing is in progress.
Update	Change the currently selected entity. Will be disabled if no entity is selected or if there is more than one entity selected or editing is in progress.
Delete	Remove the currently selected entity. Will be disabled if no entity is selected or if there is more than one entity selected or editing is in progress.
Reset	Reset the form fields back to their original values. Will be disabled if editing is not in progress.
Submit	Complete the edit process and save the current changes. Will be disabled when editing isn't in process or if the current state isn't value, for example if a polygon geometry is required but hasn't been added yet.
Cancel	Abort the edit process and abandon the current changes. Will be disabled when editing isn't in process.
Modify	Modify an existing geometry. Will be disabled if there is no geometry attached to the entity.
Point	Create a new point. Will be disabled if the entity doesn't support point geometry or if it only supports a single point and there already is a point attached to the entity.
Line	Create a new line. Will be disabled if the entity doesn't support line geometry or if it only supports a single point and there already is a line attached to the entity.
Polygon	Create a new polygon. Will be disabled if the entity doesn't support polygon geometry or if it only supports a single polygon and there already is a polygon attached to the entity.
Remove	Remove the currently selected geometry. Will be disabled if there is a) no geometry enabled or, b) if the entity requires some geometry and this is the last piece of geometry related to the entity.
Snap	Toggle the snapping function on and off.
Settings	Changes the snapping settings.
Import	The import button allows the user to import geometry from another entity.

Customising the client edit view

There are a number of customisation options available to alter the display of the edit view

name	type	default	description

name	type	default	description
enableCreate	boolean	true	Should the 'Create' button be displayed
enableUpdate	boolean	true	Should the 'Update' button be displayed
enableDelete	boolean	true	Should the 'Delete' button be displayed
enableModify	boolean	true	Should the 'Modify' button be displayed
enablePoint	boolean	true	Should the 'Point' button be displayed
enableLine	boolean	true	Should the 'Line' button be displayed
enablePolygon	boolean	true	Should the 'Polygon' button be displayed
enableRemove	boolean	true	Should the 'Remove' button be displayed
enableSnap	boolean	true	Should the 'Snapping' button be displayed
enableSettings	boolean	true	Should the 'Settings' button be displayed
enableImport	boolean	true	Should the 'Import' button be displayed
showText	boolean	false	Should the text label appear in the create, update, delete and reset buttons? This only applies to the default toolbar, if you replace the default toolbar with your own you'd need to set showText to the appropriate value for each button, also note that this value defaults to true in that situation. The default was changed from release 2.6.4, the default was previously true. This is removed from release 2.6.5, text will never be shown.
showIcon	boolean	true	Should the icon appear in the create, update, delete and reset buttons? Note that this only applies to the default toolbar, if you replace the default toolbar with your own you'd need to set showIcon to the appropriate value for each button. Setting this to false will set showText to true if it is not explicitly set. This is removed from release 2.6.5, icons will always be shown.
embedButtons	boolean	false	Should the 'Submit' and 'Cancel' buttons be embedded in the form (or remain in the toolbar) This is removed from release 2.6.4, the buttons will always be embedded in the input panel.

Button display based on showIcon and showText values

	showText unset	showText true	showText false

	showText unset	showText true	showText false
showIcon unset	icons/no text	icons/text	icons/no text
showIcon true	icons/no text	icons/text	icons/no text
showIcon false	no icons/text	no icons/text	icons/no text

Edit View with showText set to false and showIcon set to true

Server Edit Configuration

Before an entity can be edited it must have at least one edit configuration associated with it. The edit configuration enables editing for the particular entity and also allows for overriding the details about the way the user can edit the entity. Examples are what attributes the user can edit and or how the attributes are presented to the user.

You can have multiple edits associated with each entity. The user will be able to choose which edit to perform by selecting from a list.

Basic Server Edit Configuration

The most basic edit configuration interrogates the underlying spatial tables for the information it requires. (e.g. to determine what attributes are associated with the entity or what spatial geometries, point, line or polygon, the user is allowed to create)

Simple edit configuration example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<config xmlns="urn:com.cohga.server.config#1.0" xmlns:edit="urn:com.cohga.spatial.edit#1.0">

  <edit:config id="simple.edit">
    <entity>graffiti</entity>
    <label>Graffiti</label>
    <description>Report graffiti for removal</description>
  </edit:config>

</config>

This provides a simple way to setup editing for an entity and allow the user to directly edit the attributes attached to the entity in the underlying spatial table.

The edit configuration has a publish setting, which when set to false will stop the edit from appearing in the list of edits available for an entity. The edit will still be available but can only be initiated via code or a URL parameter, this provides for the creation of custom editing clients that do not have their edits listed in standard editing clients.

Default editing attributes

The basic edit configuration enables all attributes available for editing. Also, the basic configuration does not provide an option to customise how the user will be able to edit those values, which will be determined by the underlying column type in the spatial table and be limited to simple field types (e.g. text fields for string and numbers, calendar field for dates).

Default geometry requirements

The types of geometry the user will be able to create or edit will also be determined by the underlying spatial table. If the spatial table contains polygons then the user will only be able to create polygons and they will not be able to create points or lines. If however the entity is linked to two spatial tables, one containing polygons and the other containing points then the user will be able to edit both points and polygons.

There is differentiation between spatial layers that contain single instance geometry and those that contain multi-instance geometry. That is, if the spatial table contains multipolygons, as opposed to just polygons, then the user will be allowed to create more than one polygon shape when editing the entity. When the spatial table contains polygons the user will be limited to a single polygon object. The same differentiation applies to points or multipoints and lines or multilines.

The requirement for the user to create geometry is also determined by the underlying spatial table. If the spatial table allows nil geometry then the user will not be forced to create a geometry when creating a new entity however if the spatial table doesn't allow nil geometries then the user will be required to create a geometry before they will be able to complete the edit.

Customising Server Edit Configuration

If you need more control over the attributes and geometry for an edit then you need to override the values that the simple form is generating.

The things that you can override are the parameters that the user can edit, the maximum number of geometry items the user can create, the required number of geometry items the user must create, and if the user can create, update and/or delete an enitity.

Basic custom edit configuration example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<config xmlns="urn:com.cohga.server.config#1.0" xmlns:edit="urn:com.cohga.spatial.edit#1.0">

  <edit:config id="custom.edit">
    <entity>graffiti</entity>
    <label>Grafitti</label>
    <description>Report graffiti for removal</description>
    <geometry>
      <point minimum="1" maximum="1"/>
    </geometry>
    <parameter id="description">
      <label>Description</label>
      <controlType>textarea</controlType>
      <column>DESCRIPTION</column>
    </parameter>
  </edit:config>

</config>

Please note that the <column> value is case sensitive. "DESCRIPTION" is not the same as "Description"

Custom geometry requirements

Unless explicitly set the types of geometry that a user can create for an entity, and also if the user can create an entity with no geometry, is defined by the underlying spatial tables, if you wish to override this then you do so with the geometry settings.

The geometry settings determine the minimum and maximum number of each geometry type (point, linestring and polygon) that the user can create, as well as the total number of geometry items (of any type) that the user can create.

This is done by specifying point, linestring, polygon and/or geometry items, and for each one specify the minimum and maximum value for each. If no point, linestring or polygon setting is specified then the user will not be able to create those geometry types, unless geometry is specified in which case the user can create all geometry types.

Some examples of why you would want to set these values are (these assume that you can't change the underlying spatial table):

Spatial table allows nil geometry but you wish to enforce geometry creation

<geometry minimum="1"/>

or

<geometry>
  <polygon minimum="1"/>
</geometry>

Spatial table allows multi part geometry but you wish to enforce creation of single part geometry

<geometry maximum="1"/>

or

<geometry>
  <polygon maximum="1"/>
</geometry>

The spatial engine supports multiple geometry types in a single table, for example Oracle Spatial, and you wish to limit the geometry

<geometry>
  <polygon/>
</geometry>

You want the user to specify 2 geometries, including 1 polygon and either a point or a line.

<geometry minimum="2" maximum="2">
  <polygon minimum="1" maximum="1"/>
  <linestring/>
  <point/>
</geometry>

You want the user to specify 2 geometries, including 1 polygon and either a point, line or polygon.

<geometry minimum="2" maximum="2">
  <polygon minimum="1"/>
  <linestring/>
  <point/>
</geometry>

You want the user to specify 1 or 2 geometries, including 1 polygon and optionally a point or line.

<geometry maximum="2">
  <polygon minimum="1"/>
  <linestring/>
  <point/>
</geometry>

You want the user to specify between 2 and four points.

<geometry>
  <point minimum="2" maximum="4"/>
</geometry>

As of version 0.38 it's possible to specify that multiple geometry types are supported, but only one should be used at a time. That is if the user creates a polygon then they can only create more polygons, even if the edit supports lines. This is done by setting the value for exclusive to true in the main geometry tag.

Setting the geometry type to 'exclusive'

<geometry maximum="2" exclusive="true">
  <polygon/>
  <linestring/>
  <point/>
</geometry>

If minimum is not specified it defaults to 0.
If maximum is not specified there will be no upper limit.

Restricting edit types

You can selectively disable a users ability to create, update or delete entities by setting create, update or delete to false in the edit config.

Create an edit where users can only create new entities

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<config xmlns="urn:com.cohga.server.config#1.0" xmlns:edit="urn:com.cohga.spatial.edit#1.0">
  <edit:config id="simple.edit">
    <entity>graffiti</entity>
    <label>Graffiti</label>
    <description>Report graffiti for removal</description>
    <update>false</update>
    <delete>false</delete>
  </edit:config>
</config>

Custom attributes

If the default attribute editing setup isn't suitable you can directly specify the attributes that the user can edit and how they appear to the user.

When any parameters are specified they will completely replace any parameters that may have been created by Weave

This is done by adding one or more parameter items to the edit configuration, where each parameter specified one input parameter. The format of the parameter items in an edit config are an extension of those available for search parameters.

Name	Type	Required	Default	Description
id	string	yes		A unique identifier for the parameter
label	string	yes		The prompt text displayed when user input the parameter value
column	string	no		The name of the column within the table that this parameter references
helptext	string	no		Additional text to display for the parameter to explain how to use the parameter
hidden	boolean	no	false	Hides the parameter from the parameter UI
alignment	'left', 'center', 'right', 'auto'	no	'auto'	How the items should appear in the UI
controltype	'listbox', 'checkbox', 'radiobutton', 'textbox' or 'textarea'	no	'textbox'	The suggested type of UI control to use when displaying the parameter
datatype	'any', 'date', 'time', 'datetime', 'integer', 'string'	no	'string'	The data type for the parameter
allownull	boolean	no	false	Whether a null value is allowed for this parameter
allowblank	boolean	no	true	Give the user the choice of an empty value in the listbox (as opposed to a null value)
allownewvalues	boolean	no	false	Allow the user to enter values not in the listbox already
defaultvalue	any	no		The default value of the parameter
dataset	ref urn:com.cohga.server.data.database#1.0:datadefinition	no