I apologize for the delay in getting this issue out – since the last one I have been out of town four or five times, including one trip out of the country. Such is the life of the busy consultant.

At the beginning of the year I became an ESRI Authorized Consultant, which is a type of Business Partner. Being a business partner gives me resources to better assist those of you who are ESRI users. Also related to ESRI, I am now a Beta tester for ARC/INFO 8.0. This gives me the ability to advise you on steps you might wish to take in preparation for its release, as well as steps that you might wish to avoid in anticipation of its release!

A few months ago I became the sole owner of a piece of software called MAPComposer. This is a specialized tool for assisting in map making and map editing. I am pleased to say that I have already licensed and installed my first client with this Arcplot productivity tool. Development is underway to integrate it into Arcedit as well.

I wish to thank those people who sent me material for my news-letter. Please do not be discouraged if you do not see it in here. I will try to include it in future issues.

In the January 1999 issue of my newsletter I began addressing issues relating to the migration of ARC/INFO applications to Windows NT. Specifically, I explained how you can make your applications function better by setting various user and application environment parameters. These are "nitpicky" details that nevertheless can make your applications function more easily in the dynamic world of PC networks.

In this issue I will address topics that are closer to a programmer’s heart: how to deal with the "loss" of UNIX tools in the NT world. Even for folks who never were great big fans of UNIX, there are certain aspects of UNIX that are hard to live without in this new, brave (Microsoft) world of ours.

UNIX commands: where are you now that I need you?

.cp –r, rm –r, du –sk, and other such UNIX commands were commonly embedded into ARC/INFO applications in the past. Now, in the emerging Windows NT operating environment, we feel a sudden sense of loss when our applications first encounter these commands in our code and stop cold. There are four main approaches to solving this problem. First, and easiest, is to seek AML functions that fulfill the same functions as these UNIX commands. However, not all commands can be replaced with AML. Therefore, the second approach is to obtain NT executables of the missing UNIX commands. Third, is to use DOS functionality still available in NT from the command line. And the fourth approach, which is my least favorite, is to attempt to use NT’s own functionality from the command line, inside AML.

AML functions to replace UNIX commands

The following UNIX commands can be replaced by AML functions that perform in a similar or identical way. rm: [delete -file], rm -r: [delete -directory], cp: [copy -file], cp -r: [copy -directory], mv: [rename -file], mv -r: [rename -directory]. A quick search and replace can resolve many "UNIX? What UNIX?" type of errors in your applications.

UNIX tools for Windows NT

Believe it or not, you can use much of UNIX’s command in Windows NT, if you get the versions of the commands that have been compiled for NT. I am not talking about using a PC version of UNIX, like LINUX, but rather using UNIX commands from the command line. Like the good old days, some would say. Some command sets are available as freeware, and some need to be purchased. With each of these, once you install the software, you have access to a suite of commands from the command line (i.e. a DOS shell window). Since ARC/INFO operates from such a shell window, your familiar &sys command will access these UNIX commands just as it always has. Pretty cool. Below is a partial list of the available options.

Free Software Foundation (GNU)

Cygnus Solutions Corporation

Reed Kotler Corporation

Mortice Kern Systems (MKS) Inc.

DOS commands from the command line

Sometimes a command you need is available from the DOS command line, such as the attrib command, that can substitute for the chmod UNIX command. To access DOS commands, you can use the &sys command, followed by the DOS command itself, or you can use &sys command. The command command is a DOS command whose arguments are names of other DOS commands to be run. Thus you can string several DOS commands into a &data…&end AML block, as in the following example:

&data command
   attrib –R %coverage% /S
   erase plots/*.gra /S
&end

Calling on Windows NT functions

This is probably the deepest of the deep, and I haven’t personally gone there. This is the option that exists for calling directly on Windows NT functions, such sending the desktop commands necessary for rearranging icons, retrieving the name of the user currently logged in, or retrieving various information regarding the status of various windows. If you know how to do this well, I would sure like to hear about it!

Attaining UNIX-like window focus-policy – it’s heaven!

Fed up with having to click on the Arcedit or Arcplot command window in order to type in a command, then clicking on the graphics window to see the graphics and interact with them, and back and forth? ESRI suggests using the Always on top option available from the upper-right button on the graphics window, one session at a time. This is not a happenin’ solution, let me tell you. What you need is Tweak UI.

Help from ESRI

In the first part of this year I added two more names to my client list: EI Technologies, LLC of Aurora, CO, and Equilon Enterprises, LLC of Houston, TX. EI Technologies (www.eitek.com) is a full service GIS consulting, implementation, and data conversion firm, specializing in local government agencies. Equilon Enterprises (www.equilon.com) is a joint venture of Texaco and Shell, and is therefore one of the larger petroleum companies around.

In recent months I have completed three interesting ArcView programming jobs. The first, a public-access kiosk for an Assessor’s Office, was interesting because I had to hide all of ArcView’s standard functionality, including all menus, buttons, and tools, and disable the ability of the user to resize or close the ArcView window. This was achieved by overlaying Dialog Designer forms over the rest of ArcView, and locking them down there.

The second project involved automating the generation of Crystal Reports reports from ArcView. This property management application helped the user transfer map graphics originating in shapefiles from ArcView, and data tables originating in Access, directly into pre-formatted reports. This helped my client realize benefits from Crystal Reports which are only partially available out of the box.