The term Web APIs refer to the JavaScript, Silverlight and Flex APIs for ArcGIS Server.

In addition to web editing available through the Web ADF at previous releases there is now a new type of editing. The new Feature Service mentioned above now allows editing to be performed using the Web APIs.

These APIs use Feature Layers to access feature services through REST endpoints providing stateless, scalable editing to be performed. The edit functionality is more than just digitising features, it allows existing features to be moved, deleted, reshaped, split, merged and more. Attributes and tabular data can also be edited. A workgroup or enterprise geodatabase is required by the feature service to underpin this, and both versioned and non-versioned feature classes are supported.

The existing Web Mapping Application for the Web ADF has only had minor changes made to it. See below for details. However there is now an out of the box Flex Viewer as well. Furthermore, the Silverlight API now provided templates from which you can develop applications (not quite out of the box, but certainly a help).

It is still supported and maintained for existing customers, but should not really be recommended for new implementations. There are some changes to the Web ADF at ArcGIS 10 in that the install has changed and is now a separate option from the main ArcGIS Server installation to facilitate installing the Web ADF separately on a server.

Other changes include support for relates and stand-alone tables. The only additions to the Web Mapping Application (created by ArcGIS Server Manager) are a zoom to specific scale tool and a zoom to x,y, tool.

The time-aware information is preserved and is accessible through the map service. You can use this information to change the display of your maps or perform temporal queries. The Web APIs include a Time Slider tool to help animate temporal maps.

Yes. There will be an application that will be downloadable from the Apple App Store. It will allow you to View Corporate and Online Maps, pick maps from a map gallery, query and analyse data, collect and report information.

There is also an SDK for developing custom iPhone applications. This will require a MAC computer for development and use of Objective C / Cocoa to build the native iPhone applications. The functionality available in the SDK should be almost equivalent to that in the REST based APIs. This means it will only support online applications.

ArcGIS.com changes the way users engage with online content. The website allows a user to search and browse for maps, services and applications provided by both ESRI and the User Community. The ESRI content includes everything that was previously available and more. Users can upload and share content and have the choice of whether their own content is publically available or only available to groups of invited users.

ArcGIS.com also allows users to create online Web Maps allowing them to bring together any map services available through ArcGIS.com or from their own ArcGIS Server map services. These web maps can be saved and shared with other users.

Furthermore, there is now an online version of ArcGIS Explorer. This provides an online mapping application where users can not only bring together data content including previously created online web maps, but also enhance these by using the annotation tools and even create interactive presentation slides.

VB6 is no longer supported. Support for VB6 was dropped by Microsoft a long time ago. Extensions written in VB6 will need to be re-written for ArcGIS 10. VBA is still supported at ArcGIS 10, but this will be the last release. Developers are encouraged to move to Python.

Python is an integral part of ArcGIS Desktop for automating tasks and the new add-in capabilities allow developers to easily create and deploy ArcMap customisations.

An important change at version 10 is that VBA is not part of the ArcGIS Desktop install. If you need VBA, you need to install the ArcObjects VBA SDK, which will setup the VBA Runtime, Editor, and Help. Please note that an additional authorization file is required for VBA.

This is a no charge license that can be requested from your customer representative. For more information on migrating VBA code see help.

Add-Ins are a new way to customise ArcGIS Desktop (not ArcGIS Engine). They are an easily deployable mechanism that doesn’t require all the COM registration as with tool and commands etc. The traditional methods will still work though.

Add-Ins do not cover everything that can be achieved using the traditional methods but a great deal of functionality can be accessed using them. Refer to the help or R&D pages for more details on what can and can’t be done.

It is an API to allow developers to access the file geodatabase (both read and write) without using ArcObjects. This API uses c++. It is not designed as an open format to replace the shapefile.

At ArcGIS 10 ArcGIS has fully embraced Python as its language for automation. Desktop includes a new python window that can be used for simple and quick execution of GP tools, for experimenting and learning Python and accessing other Python libraries.

The Python window is interactive and allows things like layers to be dragged from the table of content into the window to act as inputs for tools. ArcPy is a new site package for analysis, data management and map automation and is the successor to the arcgisscripting module.

Data Driven Pages is a new feature for creating a series of layout images from a single map document and can be automated using python. This replaces the much used DS Map Book sample. The ArcPy and Python workflows can be published as GeoProcessing Services using ArcGIS Server.

ArcGIS 10 Desktop introduces ArcPy, which is often referred to as the ArcPy site package. ArcPy provides Python access for all geoprocessing tools, including extensions, as well as a wide variety of useful functions and classes for working with verifying the integrity of GIS data.

Included in ArcPy is a mapping automation module called arcpy.mapping, which is a set of Python functions that allow you to open and manipulate ArcMap map documents (.mxd) and layer files (.lyr).

Using an arcpy.mapping script, you can create a list of maps that have layers referencing a certain data source and update or repair the data source links for all layers in a map document. You can also create a report on information contained in layers, data sources, and symbology.

No. Virtual Machines are the solutions for running the two different installs on the same machine.

Search with ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Server, and ArcGIS Online is based on a small collection of metadata stored with the GIS resources (title, user tags, etc). Keep in mind that this new search capability is not designed to handle indexing and searching of formal metadata documents and that spatial search against GIS resources is not supported at this time.

• ArcGIS Desktop search - Desktop search allows every ArcGIS Desktop user to very quickly search across accessible network folders (shared folders) and databases.
• ArcGIS Server search - ArcGIS Server introduces a new search service that allows you to index and search GIS resources within your Enterprise in a centralised manner. The search service is designed to be used by ArcGIS Desktop users within an organisation's intranet.
• ArcGIS Online search - ArcGIS Online provides a hosted catalog of information in which users can upload their own resources and create their own groups. The ArcGIS Online search is intended for organisations who want to share their data with the general public or within the organisation via a group.

In addition, the GeoPortal Extension for ArcGIS Server allows users to quickly search GIS resources within the organisation, via ArcGIS Online, or across other metadata catalogs.

Search with ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Server, and ArcGIS Online is based on a small collection of metadata stored with the GIS resources (title, user tags, etc). Keep in mind that this new search capability is not designed to handle indexing and searching of formal metadata documents and that spatial search against GIS resources is not supported at this time.

• ArcGIS Desktop search—Desktop search allows every ArcGIS Desktop user to very quickly search across accessible network folders (shared folders) and databases.
• ArcGIS Server search—ArcGIS Server introduces a new search service that allows you to index and search GIS resources within your in a centralised manner. The search service is designed to be used by ArcGIS Desktop users within an organisation's intranet.
• ArcGIS Online search—ArcGIS Online provides a hosted catalog of information in which users can upload their own resources and create their own groups. The ArcGIS Online search is intended for organisations who want to share their data with the general public or within the organisation via a group.

In addition, the GeoPortal Extension for ArcGIS Server allows users to quickly search GIS resources within the organisation, via ArcGIS Online, or across other metadata catalogs.

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