First off - standard disclaimer: "I'm not a programmer." So I don't have the technical knowledge to implement this, but it seems that it should be possible to save graphics that are drawn using the Draw widget to a format such as a geodatabase feature class, or shapefile, or GPX, or a CSV file, etc.
I'm using Robert's eDraw widget, and I've looked at several other widgets that have drawing capabilities, and some of them (including Robert's) have the ability to save drawn graphics to a text file. When you open the saved text file, you see that it has the various symbol properties (line color, fill color, etc) as well as the coordinate system definition (via the WKID) and the map coordinates defining the drawn graphics. This seems like all the information that would be needed in order to convert the text file into a feature class, shapefile, GPX file, etc. But yet I have not come across any widgets that can do this.
So I guess my question is, why aren't there any draw-type widgets that can do this? Is it because it's too difficult programmatically? Or is it just because no one has thought of it or needs this feature? To me, it seems like a basic function that ESRI would build into the API and make an integral part of any widget that draws or creates a graphics layer.
I'm using Robert's eDraw widget, and I've looked at several other widgets that have drawing capabilities, and some of them (including Robert's) have the ability to save drawn graphics to a text file. When you open the saved text file, you see that it has the various symbol properties (line color, fill color, etc) as well as the coordinate system definition (via the WKID) and the map coordinates defining the drawn graphics. This seems like all the information that would be needed in order to convert the text file into a feature class, shapefile, GPX file, etc. But yet I have not come across any widgets that can do this.
So I guess my question is, why aren't there any draw-type widgets that can do this? Is it because it's too difficult programmatically? Or is it just because no one has thought of it or needs this feature? To me, it seems like a basic function that ESRI would build into the API and make an integral part of any widget that draws or creates a graphics layer.