Getting Started

with
ArcObjects
Presenter: Robert Burke
ESRI Redlands, California

I’m Rob Burke, and I’ll be your host for the next hour. I work as an instructor and writer and all-
around educational specialist here at ESRI. Also joining us is fellow instructor and ArcObjects™
specialist Jeremiah Lindemann. During the presentation you’re encouraged to ask questions and
during those times when we can answer them, Jeremiah will be assisting. Welcome, Jeremiah,
and thanks for joining us.

(Jeremiah) It’s great to be here. Thanks, Rob.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 1

 Seminar overview
¾ Topics include:
ƒ Understanding ArcObjects
ƒ Reading object model diagrams
ƒ Using programmer interfaces

¾ Format
ƒ Each topic followed by a question and answer period
ƒ Software demonstration

Let’s go ahead and get started. We’ve got three topics to get through today. Each topic will be
followed by some questions and answers and a demonstration at the end. The first topic is
"Understanding ArcObjects." There I’ll try to explain the basics of ArcObjects to give you an
overview. After that, we’ll look at reading object model diagrams. There I’ll try to explain how to
use the ArcObjects diagrams to help you write some code. In the end, we’ll talk about
programmer interfaces—not user interfaces, but programmer interfaces. You’re not sure what
they are? Stay tuned.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 2

 Understanding
ArcObjects

The first topic is "Understanding ArcObjects."

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 3

 ArcObjects and ArcGIS applications
ƒ ArcMap and ArcCatalog are built with ArcObjects

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The ArcGIS® applications, like ArcMap™ and ArcCatalog™, are built from ArcObjects. These
objects are basic building blocks, so things like maps and layers and buttons and tools and the
points and lines and polygons, and, in ArcCatalog, the tree view and the different things you can
click on in the tree view. Each of those things are building blocks. They are created from
ArcObjects.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 4

 ArcObjects and ArcGIS applications
ƒ ArcMap and ArcCatalog are built with ArcObjects
ƒ Each GIS part is a programmable object

Map

Point
Layer

Polygon

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ArcObjects are really programmable pieces that are assembled to build ArcMap and ArcCatalog.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 5

 ArcObjects and ArcGIS applications
ƒ ArcMap and ArcCatalog are built with ArcObjects
ƒ Each GIS part is a programmable object
ƒ Users and programmers use same objects
ƒ Names may differ: programmer’s Map = user’s Data Frame

Map

Point
Layer

Polygon

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Users and programmers work with the same objects. You may know what some of these objects
are already because you’ve worked with the ArcGIS Desktop applications. So you probably know
point and line and polygon and maps and layers. You might call maps "data frames." The names
might be different sometimes, but either way there are these objects that are the building blocks.
Users work with them and so do programmers.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 6

 What are ArcObjects?
ƒ Technically called classes
ƒ 2,700+ ArcObjects classes
ƒ Each class represents a basic GIS part

Map Point Table

Layer Line Row

Polygon Field

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ArcObjects really aren’t objects at all. They are a set of classes. There are 2,700 of them
altogether. Each one represents some basic building block of GIS.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 7

 What are ArcObjects?
ƒ Technically called classes
ƒ 2,700+ ArcObjects classes
ƒ Each class represents a basic GIS part
ƒ Coded in C++ by ESRI
ƒ Other programmers and users make objects out of them

Map Point Table

Layer Line Row

Polygon Field

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Programmers at ESRI write C++ code to build these classes. So, a class like the Layer class,
there’s code for it behind the scenes that’s written in C++ to get a layer to look the way it’s
supposed to—to let it have a legend and color options and symbol options. Programmers write
C++ code to make all that happen. Then, other programmers and users, like ourselves, we make
objects out of these classes, and then go about setting properties and getting the objects to do
different things.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 8

 How are the ArcObject classes stored?
ƒ Stored as DLL files
ƒ c:\arcgis\arcexe83\bin
ƒ Dynamic Linked Library files
ƒ One file is a key to the others
ƒ esricore.olb (Object Library file)

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Classes are stored in files—DLL files in your bin folder wherever you have ArcGIS installed.
These are dynamic-link library files; they hold all the C++ code in a binary format. One file that
is a key to all the others is called the esricore.olb. It’s an object library file that keeps track of all
the classes. You don’t usually work with these files. You don’t ever go to these folders and work
with these files. However, if you do any future programming work, you might reference these and
take advantage of the code that’s already been written.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 9

 What are objects then?
ƒ You see them (sometimes) and set their properties
ƒ Stored in active memory
ƒ Can be saved in a map document

ArcMap

Layer

Page

TOC tab
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Objects, then, are different than classes. Objects come to life. You can see objects on your screen
sometimes. When you start ArcMap, an ArcMap application window is created. It’s an object. It
only lives in active memory, and it displays on your computer screen. Layer objects can be
created. You can make as many of these layer objects as you want and then you go about setting
their properties to get them to look the way you want. You set their color and their symbols.

Objects only live in memory, so those layers are stored in active memory with the current
property settings. If you were to quit ArcMap, those objects would go away. Before quitting, if
you saved your work into a map document, the MXD file would contain the parameters that you
set—the properties that you set—so that next time, when you start ArcMap up again, it could
recreate those same objects and they would look the same way as they did before.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 10

 Classes vs. objects
ƒ Classes: live as code in files
ƒ Its code controls how its objects work
ƒ Objects: live in memory
ƒ You create objects from classes
ƒ You create many Layer objects from the Layer class

Layer

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Classes are code that live in a DLL file. Here we have the Layer class. From the Layer class,
users create Layer objects. Programmers also create Layer objects from the Layer class.
Programmers do it with code; users do it by clicking the Add Data button. When you go about
changing a layer’s colors, symbols, and properties, you’re able to do that because the code in the
Layer class allows you to do that.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 11

 Classes vs. objects
ƒ One ESRI ContentsView class: two ESRI tabs

ContentsView

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One of the ESRI classes is called the ContentsView class, and you might know the objects
created from ContentsView: they’re the Display and the Source tabs in your table of contents
window.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 12

 Classes vs. objects
ƒ One ESRI ContentsView class: two ESRI tabs
ƒ One RobsView class: Rob’s tab
ƒ Make your own classes based on ESRI classes
ƒ Objects from your classes show up in ArcMap too

RobsView

ContentsView

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I used Visual Basic to make my own ContentsView class; I called it Rob’sView. From that class,
I’ve created a Catalog object. Whenever ArcMap starts up, my class has been registered with
ArcMap, so it knows to create these Catalog tab objects whenever it starts up.

Let’s take a look at this tab to see how I got it to work [opens ArcMap]. If I click on the Catalog
tab, I see that I’ve got an ArcCatalog tree view. Here I can navigate through files and folders, just
as you would when you use ArcCatalog, and then I can find a feature class and drag it onto my
map. If I look at the Display tab, I’ll see that, oh yeah, there’s the new layer added to the map.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 13

 How do you program with ArcObjects?
ƒ ArcGIS applications come with VBA
ƒ Visual Basic for Applications
ƒ Stored in map document files (.mxd files)
ƒ You can use other language environments
ƒ Visual Basic
ƒ C++
ƒ Delphi
ƒ PowerBuilder
ƒ These languages make .olb, .dll, .exe files

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You can use a variety of programming languages. As I mentioned earlier, I used Visual Basic to
create that ContentsView class. The ESRI programmers work in C++. Maybe one of the more
popular languages is VBA, or Visual Basic for Applications. I say that because it comes with the
ArcGIS applications—it’s built into ArcMap and ArcCatalog. You don’t have to make an extra
purchase to get VBA; you’ve already got it if you have ArcEditor™, ArcInfo®, or ArcView®.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 14

 Review and Q & A
¾ ArcMap and ArcCatalog are built with ArcObjects
ƒ 2,700+ ArcObjects classes
ƒ Each class represents a basic GIS part
ƒ Stored as DLL files
¾ Create objects from classes
ƒ Classes are stored as code in files
ƒ Objects come alive in Active memory
¾ Can use almost any programming language

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Well, to review this bit so far, we’ve talked about how ArcObjects are really a whole bunch of
classes stored in DLL files, and how users and programmers alike make use of those classes by
making objects out of them. Objects come to life in memory, in active memory on your computer.
When you’re done with one of the applications, all the ArcObjects are removed from memory.
Classes are always there; they’re always out there stored in the DLL files.

Well, Jeremiah’s got a whole bunch of questions listed here. Let’s try to answer a few of them.

(Jeremiah) Great. Let’s take some questions that you guys have been sending in through the Ask
the Presenter button on your display.

Ken from Klamath Falls, Oregon asked, “If I write something using ArcObjects from 8.1, will it
work in 8.3?”

And the answer is yes. This is part of what’s called the COM contract. All ArcObjects are built
upon the specified structure where they’re guaranteed not to change, and they’ll work from
version to version. Some of you may have heard that we’ve been working in ArcGIS 9 and we’ll

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 15

be releasing it this year. And, anything that we’re writing in ArcObjects 8.3 will also be working
within ArcGIS 9, as well. That’s nice to know.

Ken from Dallas asks, “Can you build ArcObjects that run from Internet Explorer?”

This is a little bit of an advanced question, and, no, we cannot use ArcObjects through Internet
Explorer at ArcGIS 8.3. Something else in ArcGIS 9 that will be coming out, there’s going to be
a new product called ArcGIS Server that will allow us to do this.

Sally from Jacksonville asks, “Do I have to buy ArcObjects?”

The answer to that question is no, you don’t have to buy ArcObjects specifically. When you have
ArcGIS Desktop, you automatically get access to ArcObjects. Just as Rob was mentioning, you
get access to VBA, where you’ll be accessing the objects. The objects are already there. They’re
included with the application. Okay, I’ll turn it back over to Rob now.

(Rob) Alright, thanks, Jeremiah. Let’s go ahead and move on to the second topic.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 16

 Reading
object model
diagrams

Here we’re going to look at reading object model diagrams.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 17

 Maps are diagrams
ƒ Say you are going to a new city
ƒ Get a map to learn the city roads and landmarks
ƒ The map looks complex at first
ƒ Use the legend to understand the map symbols

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Object model diagrams are almost like road maps of the ArcGIS system. Similar to the way you’d
use a map to learn a new city, you use the object model diagrams to learn how the ArcObjects are
organized. If you go to a new city, like Albuquerque, you might get a map of that city and try to
familiarize yourself with the roads and the landmarks and try to find your way around the town
before you actually go there. You use the map to do that. You can understand the map and its
symbols because there’s a legend there, and it tells you what all the colors mean—the red are
interstate highways, the black are regular highways, and the gray ones are streets.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 18

 Object model diagrams
ƒ Like maps for the different groups of ArcObjects
ƒ ArcMap, Display, Geometry, etc.

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When reading the ArcGIS object model diagrams, they look a little bit complex at first too, but
they are like road maps for the different groups of ArcObjects. Earlier I mentioned how there are
2,700 classes; there are about 30 diagrams to show those classes. Each of the diagrams is
organized by topic. So, for example, the diagram you see here is the ArcMap object model
diagram, and it shows all the classes related to creating the ArcMap display, ArcMap window,
ArcMap application. There’s another set of objects called the Geometry objects. They have their
own diagram. The Display diagram contains classes like renderers, for making layer legends, and
color models, to change colors and symbology for points and lines and polygons.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 19

 Object model diagrams
ƒ Like maps for the different groups of ArcObjects
ƒ ArcMap, Display, Geometry, etc.
ƒ Use the legend to understand the diagrams

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Each of the diagrams has a legend full of symbols to help you understand how to read the
diagram. In the next few slides, I’m going to explain what all those symbols mean in the legend
so that you can read the diagrams and learn to write some code.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 20

 Object model diagrams
ƒ Like maps for the different groups of ArcObjects
ƒ ArcMap, Display, Geometry, etc.
ƒ Use the legend to understand the diagrams
ƒ UML symbols – Unified Modeling Language

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The diagrams use, or are drawn with, the Unified Modeling Language. You see a lot of squares
and lines connecting them and different symbology there. We tried to follow a standard when
creating these diagrams, called UML. It’s an industry standard for diagramming object
relationships.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 21

 12 basic UML symbols
ƒ Relationships

ƒ Classes

ƒ Properties and methods

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UML is made up of many symbols, but you only need to know about 12 of them to really
navigate your way around the diagrams and start to write some code. I will define how to use
these symbols in the next few slides.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 22

 UML – Relationship symbols
ƒ Association

Chicken Nest

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The one-liner symbol is called the association. These two classes, or, if you create objects out of
these two classes, the objects are associated with each other. he way we’d read this is that a
chicken has an associated nest. The relationship here is one-to-one. There’s just one line and no
other symbols, so one chicken has one nest. If you saw one of these objects all by itself, you
really wouldn’t think anything odd of it, but they usually go together in some way.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 23

 UML – Relationship symbols
ƒ Association
ƒ Multiplicity *

Farm

Chicken * Nest

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The association can be more than just a one-to-one relationship; it can be a one-to-many
relationship. The star here signifies a many, or multiplicity, relationship. The class the star is
closest to, that’s the Many object. So here we would read this relationship: a farm has many
chickens.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 24

 UML – Relationship symbols
ƒ Association
ƒ Multiplicity *, 2

Farm

Chicken * Nest

2
Wings

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The multiplicity relationship can have an actual number. Here a chicken has two wings. The
number is closest to the object that has the multiplicity.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 25

 UML – Relationship symbols
ƒ Association
ƒ Multiplicity *, 2
ƒ Is composed of

Farm

Chicken * Nest

2
Wings

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The "composed of" symbol is shown with a solid diamond. "Composed of" means that the object
with the diamond is the composed-of object. So we’d read, this chicken is composed of two
wings. Composed of means that these two objects go together all the time; you wouldn’t see one
without the other. If you were moving the Chicken object, its composed-of objects would go with
it. If you deleted this object, the composed-of objects would get deleted also.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 26

 UML – Relationship symbols
ƒ Association
ƒ Multiplicity *, 2
ƒ Is composed of
ƒ Creates a

Farm

Egg Chicken * Nest

2
Wings

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The dashed line and the arrow indicate a "creates" relationship. Here, one type of an object
creates this other one: chickens create eggs.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 27

 UML – Relationship symbols
ƒ Association
ƒ Multiplicity *, 2
ƒ Is composed of
ƒ Creates a
ƒ Is a type of

Bird
Farm

Egg Chicken * Nest

2
Wings

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The last relationship, here, is shown with a triangle. You read this one from the bottom up. So,
starting down low and going up towards the class that the arrow or the triangle is pointing up
towards, you would say that a chicken is a type of bird. When you see this symbol, you should
think inheritance. There’s inheritance going on here. Birds have some properties and methods that
are inherited by chicken. Sure, all birds have wings and feathers and a beak. Chickens are a type
of bird, so they have those properties too. Inheritance does not go down here to these objects.
This is not an inheritance symbol or "type of" symbol. So, inheritance only happens when you see
the triangle.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 28

 UML – Class symbols
ƒ Abstract class
ƒ 2D and shaded
ƒ Objects can not be created from it

Bird
Abstract

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The Bird class is called an abstract class. It’s shown as a two-dimensional box shaded in.
Abstract classes mean that you cannot make any of these objects. Birds do not exist. You might
be saying, "Wait a minute, Rob, I can see a bird right now outside my window." And I would say,
"No. No, you do not. You see a specific type of bird."

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 29

 UML – Class symbols
ƒ Abstract class
ƒ 2D and shaded
ƒ Objects can not be created from it
ƒ Used for generalization and inheritance
ƒ Holds properties and methods that subclasses inherit

Bird
Abstract

Chicken
CoClass

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You see a robin or a sparrow or a cardinal, but, in reality, there are no birds. There are types of
birds. The abstract class is really just there for generalization and inheritance purposes, to hold
those common characteristics that are inherited by any subclasses. All birds have wings, feathers,
and beaks.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 30

 UML – Class symbols
ƒ CoClass
ƒ 3D and shaded
ƒ Create objects from CoClasses with two lines of code
ƒ Starting points for writing code

Bird
Abstract Farm
CoClass

Chicken * Nest
CoClass CoClass

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CoClasses are shown on the diagrams in a three-dimensional box, and they’re shaded in. When
you see a CoClass, this means that you can create objects from these classes. Any time you see a
CoClass, it means that you can write two lines of code to make one of these objects. These are
your starting points. If you’re not sure where to start writing code, you can locate a CoClass on
any diagram and, in two lines of code, you can make an object out of it.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 31

 UML – Class symbols
ƒ Class
ƒ 3D and not shaded
ƒ Other objects create or return these objects
ƒ You must have the other object first

Bird
Abstract Farm
CoClass

Egg Chicken * Nest

Class CoClass CoClass

2
Wings
Class
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I’ll show you the code, here, in just a minute.

Classes are shown on the diagram also as 3D, but they’re not shaded. You cannot make objects
out of these classes. You cannot make eggs or wings. Other objects have to do the creation for
you. You can see it on the diagram here with the "creates" relationship symbol. Chickens create
eggs. If you want an Egg object, you have to go to the chicken and have it make the egg for you.
If you don’t have a chicken, it’s a CoClass, so you could make one with two lines of code and
then get it to make the egg.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 32

 UML – Property symbols
ƒ Read and write property
ƒ Barbell symbol
ƒ Attributes stored about the object
ƒ Get or set these properties

Chicken
Age
Color
Name

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All classes have properties on them shown with the barbell symbol. Here, the Chicken class has
three properties: age, color, and name.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 33

 UML – Property symbols
ƒ Read only property
ƒ Left-half barbell symbol
ƒ Can get this property’s value, can’t change it

Chicken
Age
Color
Name
Wing(side)

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Some of the properties have a left-sided barbell. The left-sided barbell means you can only get
this value, but you can’t change it to something else. So here, for chicken, you could get a
reference to its wing, but you couldn’t give it a different wing. You couldn’t take a wing off an
eagle and put it onto a chicken.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 34

 UML – Property symbols
ƒ Write only property
ƒ Right-half barbell symbol
ƒ Usually an edit property
ƒ Can change this property’s value, but can’t get it

Chicken
Age
Color
Name
Wing(side)
Password

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Some of the properties are called write-only properties. They’re shown with a right-sided barbell.
You can edit this value, but you can never find out what it is. So you could change the chicken’s
password, but you can never know what the current password setting is.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 35

 Property values
ƒ Each property holds a value
ƒ Values have a type: number, string, date, object, etc.
ƒ Property: Type

Chicken
Age: Integer Age holds a integer
Color: String
Name: String
Wing(side): Wing Wing holds a wing object
Password: String

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To the right of each property are a colon and then a type. This is the value that the property holds.
Age holds an integer value. Integers are numbers like 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Some of the properties
hold the basic data types like numbers and strings and dates and Boolean values. Some properties
will hold objects or references to objects. So here, the wing property would give you a reference
to a Wing object.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 36

 UML – Method symbol
ƒ Method
ƒ Arrow symbol
ƒ Actions the object can perform
ƒ Sometimes called behaviors

Chicken

LayEgg
Fly

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Classes also have methods. Methods are shown with an arrow symbol. Methods are like the
actions that an object can perform.

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 Methods can return values
ƒ Some methods return a value, some don’t
ƒ Return values have a type
ƒ Method: Type

Chicken

LayEgg: Egg LayEgg returns an egg object

Fly

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Some methods can return a value. Some methods don’t. Fly does not return any value. It carries
out its operation and that’s it. LayEgg, on the other hand, carries out its operation and returns an
Egg object to you. This is how you carry out that creates relationship. This is how chicken creates
eggs with the LayEgg method.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 38

 Code to create an object
ƒ Two lines to create an object (from a CoClass)
ƒ Declare a variable – As keyword and the class name
ƒ Set the variable – New keyword
ƒ New object is created in memory

Chicken
Dim c As Chicken CoClass

Set c = New Chicken

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Well, let’s start to write some code here. We have the Chicken class to start off with. It’s 3D. It’s
shaded in. It’s one of those CoClasses. That means you can create an object out of this class with
two lines of code. To create an object, declare a variable. For the type, after the As keyword, use
the class name. To create an object, then, set that variable using the new keyword and the class
name.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 39

 Code to create an object
ƒ Two lines to create an object (from a CoClass)
ƒ Declare a variable – As keyword and the class name
ƒ Set the variable – New keyword
ƒ New object is created in memory
ƒ The variable is your reference to the object

Dim c As Chicken
Set c = New Chicken

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Now you have an object in memory and, more importantly, a variable to refer to that object.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 40

 One class: many objects
ƒ Declare more variables
ƒ Create more objects
ƒ Each object has an object variable

Chicken
Dim c As Chicken CoClass

Set c = New Chicken c2

c3
Dim c2 As Chicken c
Set c2 = New Chicken

Dim c3 As Chicken
Set c3 = New Chicken

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With CoClasses, you can make as many objects as you want out of them. So, the whole time
there’s only one Chicken CoClass—its code is stored off in a DLL file somewhere—but from that
Chicken CoClass, you can make as many chickens as you want. Just declare variables and set
them using the New keyword.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 41

 Code to get a property’s value
ƒ Declare a variable as the property’s type

Dim x As String Chicken

Color: String

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Say you want to change a property, like the color property, or say you want to get the color
property. When you look on the object model diagram, you always look to the right of the
property to find out what its data type is. Here, color is a string.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 42

 Code to get a property’s value
ƒ Declare a variable as the property’s type
ƒ Set the variable using Object.Property syntax

Dim x As String Chicken

x = c.Color Color: String

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If you want to get the color property, declare a variable as a string, set that variable using the
equals sign, and then the Object.Property syntax. Your variable, here, refers to the object. Here’s
its color property. This returns the value that’s stored in color and puts it in the variable x.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 43

 Code to get a property’s value
ƒ Declare a variable as the property’s type
ƒ Set the variable using Object.Property syntax
ƒ Use the property value

Dim x As String Chicken

x = c.Color Color: String
MsgBox x

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If you want to use that value, you might print it up in a message box to find out what color the
chicken is.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 44

 Code to set a property’s value
ƒ Use the Object.Property syntax
ƒ Use the equal sign and a new value
ƒ Be sure to specify the correct type

c.Color = "Brown" Chicken

Color: String

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To change the chicken’s color, you use the same syntax: Object.Property and the equals sign.
Here I enter a string that’s quoted. I use a string because I know Color expects me to set its value
using a string data type.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 45

 Code to run a method
ƒ Use the Object.Method syntax

c.Fly Chicken
Color: String

Fly

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To run methods, the syntax is very similar: Object.Method.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 46

 Code to run a method
ƒ Use the Object.Method syntax
ƒ Some methods have an arguments list

c.Fly Chicken
Color: String

Fly ( )

Arguments list

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Some methods have an arguments list with parentheses to the right of the method name.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 47

 Code to run a method
ƒ Use the Object.Method syntax
ƒ Some methods have an arguments list
ƒ Like property and method return values, arguments also have a type
ƒ Argument: Type

c.Fly "Fast" Chicken

Color: String

Fly (Speed: String)

One argument

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If the arguments list has arguments in it, the arguments will also have a data type. Here, Fly has a
speed argument and, in order to get Fly to run, you’re going to have to enter a string in the line of
code, and that is going to have to be some text string describing the speed. So here I have Fly and
then a text string describing what speed I would like the chicken to fly at. If there were more
arguments, I’d add a comma after the first argument and then that second argument after that.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 48

 Code to run a method to return a value
ƒ Declare a variable as the return type

Dim e As Egg Chicken

Color: String

Fly (Speed: String)

Egg LayEgg: Egg
Class

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Some methods return a value. LayEgg returns an egg. According to this creates relationship, this
is how you will get to eggs. Egg is a class. That means you can’t create an egg yourself—you’ve
got to get the other object to do it for you, and the way to do it is with the LayEgg method on
Chicken. If you want an egg, use the egg data type to declare a variable, or here it’s an object type
or class name.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 49

 Code to run a method to return a value
ƒ Declare a variable as the return type
ƒ Set the variable using the Object.Method syntax

Dim e As Egg Chicken

Set e = c.LayEgg Color: String

Fly (Speed: String)

Egg LayEgg: Egg
Class

e variable

22 of 37

Then set that variable using the LayEgg method on Chicken. After that, you’ve got a variable,
now, to refer to your Egg object.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 50

 Code to run a method to return a value
ƒ Declare a variable as the return type
ƒ Set the variable using the Object.Method syntax
ƒ Use the new object’s properties and methods

Dim e As Egg Chicken

Set e = c.LayEgg Color: String

Fly (Speed: String)

Egg LayEgg: Egg
Color: String

e
MsgBox e.Color

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If you want to do something with that variable—that object variable—like check the color, you
might print that up in a message box.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 51

 Code to get an associated object
ƒ Get any neighbor in two lines of code
ƒ A property on the one returns the other
ƒ Chicken’s Nest property returns associated nest
Nest property

Chicken
Nest: Nest

Nest Fly (Speed: String)

CoClass LayEgg: Egg

23 of 37

Any time you want to get to a neighboring object, there’s always a property or a method on your
current object to get you to the neighbor. Just earlier, there, we looked at how LayEgg gets eggs.
Well, if I want to get to the chicken’s nest, there’s also a property there to get to the nest.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 52

 Code to get an associated object
ƒ Get any neighbor in two lines of code
ƒ A property on the one returns the other
ƒ Chicken’s Nest property returns associated nest
ƒ Declare an object variable Property value

Chicken
Dim n As Nest
Nest: Nest

Nest Fly (Speed: String)

CoClass LayEgg: Egg

23 of 37

So, to get to a neighboring object, you need to write two lines of code: declare a variable as that
neighboring object…

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 53

 Code to get an associated object
ƒ Get any neighbor in two lines of code
ƒ A property on the one returns the other
ƒ Chicken’s Nest property returns associated nest
ƒ Declare an object variable
ƒ Set it with Object.Property
Chicken
Dim n As Nest
Nest: Nest
Set n = c.Nest
Nest Fly (Speed: String)
CoClass LayEgg: Egg

c variable

n variable
23 of 37

…and then set that variable.

Now I have two distinct variables: one pointed to the chicken, and the other pointed to the
chicken’s nest. I may need that nest variable because the chicken could leave, and I may need to
check status from time-to-time to see if the chicken is in or out. The nest may also have a Count
property, so I can get a count of how many eggs are in the nest.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 54

 Review and Q & A
¾ Object model diagrams
¾ UML symbology
¾ Write code to create and work with objects
ƒ Start with a CoClass
ƒ Declare variable for it and set it with the New keyword
ƒ Use its properties and methods
ƒ Get any neighbor in two lines of code (declare and set)
ƒ Use neighbor’s properties and methods

24 of 37

Alright, here in this section, we’ve talked about object model diagrams. I’ve tried to show you
how there are about 12 different symbols, and once you know those symbols you’ll be able to
start writing some code. There are a couple of steps that you always go through when writing
ArcObjects code. First, you need to find a starting point. You can start with a CoClass because
you know you can make an object out of a CoClass by writing two lines of code: declaring a
variable and setting it with a New keyword. Once you have an object, well, then you can start
using properties and methods on that object. Sometimes you need to get to neighboring objects or
create the neighbors. You can do that in two lines of code by declaring a variable for the neighbor
and setting it with a property or method on the object you currently have. Once you have that
neighboring object, you can run its properties and methods.

Alright, Jeremiah’s got a couple of questions here. We’ll go ahead and answer them.

(Jeremiah) Great. Thanks, Rob. Okay, Matt from Denmark asked, “Can you create your own
classes in VBA?”

Yes, you can create your own classes in VBA. But, remember, as Rob pointed out there are
nearly 3,000 ArcObjects classes that are already available. So most people that are using

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 55

ArcObjects really have no need of creating their own classes since they are already supplied for
you. This is an advanced thing that can be done and, usually, when it is done, it’s usually done in
a standalone programming language, such as Visual Basic.

Okay. Sarah from Fresno asked, “If I have VBA, how can I create an EXE—an executable—or a
DLL format package?”

Well, an EXE is just a style—an application or DLL is just another component that can plug into
another application. With VBA—Visual Basic for Applications—we cannot create EXEs or
DLLs. You have to go into a standalone programming language, such as standalone Visual Basic.
So, the answer is you cannot do it in VBA, but you can package up ArcObjects into these formats
in programs other than VBA.

Similar question: Margo from Hood River asks, “Can I write my own DLLs that distribute to
users that don’t have a copy of ArcGIS installed?”

So, if I do create these other formats—if I want to supply them to other people, they also have to
have ArcGIS installed on their machine if they want to use ArcObjects. So anywhere you want to
use ArcObjects, that machine also has to have ArcGIS Desktop installed. This’ll be changing a
little bit in ArcGIS 9. There’ll be new products that will enable you to deploy ArcObjects without
a license of ArcGIS.
Okay. And I guess we’ll turn it back over to Rob right now.

(Rob) Alright. Thanks a lot, Jeremiah.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 56

 Using programmer
interfaces

We’ll go on to the next section, here, "Using Programmer Interfaces."

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 57

 ArcObjects classes
ƒ COM compliant
ƒ Component object model
ƒ Industry standard for creating classes
ƒ Programming language independent
ƒ COM classes can be reused between applications

25 of 37

All of the ArcObjects classes are created using a standard called COM, or Component Object
Model. COM is really just a set of rules that the ESRI programmers follow to create their classes.
By following these rules, the classes become programming language-independent. The code for
the ArcObjects classes is written in C++, but you can access those classes and run their code from
all kinds of other programming languages. We’ve been using VBA or VB, but you can use a
variety of other languages too. Also, it allows the COM classes to work within other applications.
If each application follows the COM standard and all the classes between several applications
follow the standard, then the objects between them can kind of be mixed and matched and work
together. And here’s an example of that.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 58

 ArcObjects in PowerPoint
State Zoom All

ESRI MapControl

I’ve been presenting to you using PowerPoint and, in my presentation here on this slide, I’ve
added a data frame. You might be looking there and thinking, well, that sure looks like you just
imported a JPEG or a BMP image. Well, no, this is a data frame—this is an ArcMap data frame.
It comes from the ESRI map control, and it’s got some special, built-in functionality where I can
zoom in on these layers—I’ve kind of customized the layers, so when I zoom in on the States
layer, the labels know when to come on based on the scale. As I zoom in a little bit further, the
layer knows when to turn off and a new layer comes on: the Counties layer. As I zoom in on the
Counties layer, its labels know when to turn on based on scale. I’ve programmed a couple of
buttons here. I’m working in PowerPoint’s VBA. PowerPoint also has VBA built in to it.

So, I made a button here called Zoom All, and I wrote ArcObjects code to get it to zoom to the
extent of all my layers. I created another button that goes into the layer and selects one of the
states and zooms to that state based on user input, here. So I’ll type in a state name. I’m from
Wisconsin, here, so I’ll zoom to Wisconsin and the code knows to then zoom in to that state. So
here I’ve got ArcObjects working inside of PowerPoint. The reason that can happen is because
the PowerPoint classes and the ArcObjects classes are created according to the COM standard, so
they work together and I can mix and match them between applications as I need them.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 59

 ArcObjects classes
ƒ COM compliant
ƒ Component object model
ƒ Industry standard for creating classes
ƒ Programming language independent
ƒ COM classes can be reused between applications
ƒ COM classes have programmer interfaces
ƒ Classes created in one language can communicate with other
languages
ƒ ArcObjects classes are created in C++
ƒ Use them in C++, VB, VBA, Delphi, PowerBuilder, etc.

25 of 37

The way this all works is that the COM classes have something special added to them called an
interface, or a programmer interface. This is not a user interface, but it’s actually built into each
class. When classes have interfaces, they can communicate with each other even though the
languages are different. So for example, the ESRI programmers write the ArcObjects classes
using C++ code. Well, you could program with those objects using other code—other
programming languages. So here, the language really doesn’t matter if the classes were created
according to the COM standard. An interface is quite detailed, and I just don’t have enough time
to go into them here, but you might think of a programmer interface as sort of a translator that
allows code in one language to communicate with code in another language. There’s a lot more to
it than that, but that’s about the most simplified version.

I have to save my map work, here in my PowerPoint presentation, and we’ll continue on.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 60

 Programmer interfaces
ƒ Not a user interface
ƒ Group properties and methods
ƒ Lollipop symbol

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl

26 of 37

On the diagram, interfaces are shown with the lollipop symbol. All the ESRI class interfaces start
with the letter "I." So if dog happened to be an ESRI class—it’s not, but if it was, it would have
the IDog interface.

We were saying earlier in the lecture that a class has properties and methods. Well, just put
interface in between there, and then the way we talk about it is a class has interfaces and then the
interfaces have properties and methods. Any time you want to work with the ArcObjects classes,
you must work through their interfaces.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 61

 Programming with an interface
ƒ Declare a variable to an interface (not to a class)

Dim d As IDog DOG

IDog Color
Bark
Growl

27 of 37

Now, what that means to you as a VB or VBA programmer is, when you’re declaring your
variables, you declare them directly to one of the interfaces instead of the class. So really, the
only thing different here about programming with interfaces is in declaring your variables,
choosing one of those interfaces to declare to.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 62

 Programming with an interface
ƒ Declare a variable to an interface (not to a class)
ƒ Create an object with Set and New

Dim d As IDog DOG

Set d = New Dog IDog Color
Bark
Growl

27 of 37

After that, when you create new objects, it’s the same code to set a variable, use the New
keyword to make a new object, and put the class name on the end.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 63

 Programming with an interface
ƒ Declare a variable to an interface (not to a class)
ƒ Create an object with Set and New
ƒ Get and set properties
ƒ Run methods

Dim d As IDog DOG

Set d = New Dog IDog Color
Bark
d.Color = "Red" Growl

d.Bark
d.Growl

27 of 37

Once the object is created, you have access to properties and methods on the interface that the
variable has been declared to.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 64

 Programming with multiple interfaces
ƒ Classes can have multiple interfaces
ƒ Declare variables to the interface you need

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

28 of 37

All COM classes have many interfaces. That means when you declare variables you have to make
a decision: which interface should you use? You make that decision really based on the property
or method you need.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 65

 Programming with multiple interfaces
ƒ Classes can have multiple interfaces
ƒ Declare variables to the interface you need
ƒ Need a blue dog: Use IDog interface and Color property

Dim d As IDog DOG

Set d = New Dog IDog Color Color
d.Color = "Blue" Bark property
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

28 of 37

If you need to change the Color property—Color is on the IDog interface—you would declare
your variable as IDog.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 66

 Programming with multiple interfaces
ƒ Classes can have multiple interfaces
ƒ Declare variables to the interface you need
ƒ Need a blue dog: Use IDog interface and Color property
ƒ Need a dog named Jake? Use IPet and Name

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl
Dim d As IPet IPet Name Name
Set d = New Dog CallPet property
d.Name = "Jake"

28 of 37

If you needed to change the Name property, Name is on the IPet interface, you would declare
your variable as IPet, create a new object, and then go about setting its Name property. So, when
programming with the ArcObjects classes, you find the property or method you need, then
declare a variable as the interface that contains that property or method.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 67

 Interface variable naming
ƒ Names start with “p” for pointer
ƒ Variable are declared to an interface
ƒ Variables point to an interface
ƒ pPet points to IPet

Dim pPet As IPet DOG

IDog Color
Bark
Growl
pPet IPet Name
CallPet

29 of 37

As a naming convention, we use the prefix “p” before any of these variable names that point to
interfaces. “P” stands for pointer, and the way we talk about these variables is that they point. So
here, I’ve declared a variable, pPet, as the IPet interface, and the way I talk about it is that this
variable, pPet, points to the IPet interface.

When naming the variable, we use the prefix “p,” and then the name of the interface without the
“I.” By doing that, when other people look at your code, well they can just look at this variable, if
they’re maybe down deep in your code and haven’t seen where you’ve declared that variable,
they can look at it and say, "Oh, you’ve used the naming convention. This must be pointing to the
IPet interface."

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 68

 How does it work?

'Create a brown dog

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

30 of 37

Well, let’s look at an example here, and create some objects and work with their properties and
methods. Alright, so I want to create a dog and set its color.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 69

 How does it work?

'Create a brown dog

Dim pDog As IDog
Set pDog = New Dog

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

30 of 37

The Color property is on the IDog interface.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 70

 How does it work?

'Create a brown dog

Dim pDog As IDog
Set pDog = New Dog
pDog.Color = "Brown"

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

30 of 37

That’s the way I declare my variable, and then I can set the Color property.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 71

 How does it work?

'Create a brown dog

Dim pDog As IDog
Set pDog = New Dog
pDog.Color = "Brown"

'Create a dog named Benny

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

30 of 37

Say I want to change the name of a new dog.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 72

 How does it work?

'Create a brown dog

Dim pDog As IDog
Set pDog = New Dog
pDog.Color = "Brown"

'Create a dog named Benny

Dim pPet As IPet DOG
Set pPet = New Dog IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

30 of 37

Well, Name is on the IPet interface, so I declare my variable as IPet, create the new dog,

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 73

 How does it work?

'Create a brown dog

Dim pDog As IDog
Set pDog = New Dog
pDog.Color = "Brown"

'Create a dog named Benny

Dim pPet As IPet DOG
Set pPet = New Dog IDog Color
pPet.Name = "Benny" Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

Benny
30 of 37

and then set its Name property.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 74

 Review: Programming with interfaces
ƒ You end up with two dog objects

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

Benny

31 of 37

In the end, here, I end up with two Dog objects.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 75

 Review: Programming with interfaces
ƒ You end up with two dog objects
ƒ Each dog has a unique variable

DOG
pDog IDog Color
Bark
Growl
pPet IPet Name
CallPet

Benny

31 of 37

There are two different variables referencing each of the unique dogs.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 76

 Review: Programming with interfaces
ƒ You end up with two dog objects
ƒ Each dog has a unique variable
ƒ Each variable points to a different interface

DOG
pDog IDog Color
Bark
Growl
pPet IPet Name
CallPet

Benny

31 of 37

Each variable points to a different interface because I needed to get to properties and methods on
the different interfaces.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 77

 Switching interfaces on one object
'How about creating a brown dog named Bart?

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

32 of 37

Well, now, how about working with one dog? Let’s make one and then set its properties and
methods, but using several of the interfaces.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 78

 Switching interfaces on one object
'How about creating a brown dog named Bart?

'Create a dog
Dim pDog As IDog
Set pDog = New Dog

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

32 of 37

Here I want to create a dog and change its color and its name.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 79

 Switching interfaces on one object
'How about creating a brown dog named Bart?

'Create a dog and Set Color

Dim pDog As IDog
Set pDog = New Dog
pDog.Color = "Brown"

DOG
IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

32 of 37

So, I make the new dog—I use the IDog interface so I can get to the Color property. Now, I want
to work with this same dog.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 80

 Switching interfaces on one object
'How about creating a brown dog named Bart?

'Create a dog and Set Color

Dim pDog As IDog
Set pDog = New Dog
pDog.Color = "Brown"

'Set Name DOG

Dim pPet As IPet IDog Color
Bark
Growl
IPet Name
CallPet

32 of 37

I do want to change the Name property so I need a variable pointing to IPet. But then, instead of
setting this new variable using the New keyword, I don’t want to make a new dog…

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 81

 Switching interfaces on one object
'How about creating a brown dog named Bart?

'Create a dog and Set Color

Dim pDog As IDog
Set pDog = New Dog
pDog.Color = "Brown"

'Set Name DOG

Dim pPet As IPet IDog Color
Bark
'Don’t make a second dog Growl
'Just set pPet equal to pDog IPet Name
Set pPet = pDog CallPet

32 of 37

…so I’ll just set the variable equal to the variable I already have.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 82

 Switching interfaces on one object
'How about creating a brown dog named Bart?

'Create a dog and Set Color

Dim pDog As IDog
Set pDog = New Dog
pDog.Color = "Brown"
Bart

'Set Name DOG

Dim pPet As IPet IDog Color
Bark
'Don’t make a second dog Growl
'Just set pPet equal to pDog IPet Name
Set pPet = pDog CallPet

pPet.Name = "Bart"

32 of 37

After that, I can use properties and methods on the interface that this variable points to. The other
variable is still there; it still points to its original interface, and I could still use that variable too.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 83

 Review: Switching interfaces on one object
ƒ You have one dog object
ƒ Two variables to refer to that dog
ƒ The variables point to different interfaces
ƒ This is called QueryInterface

DOG
pDog IDog Color
Bark
Growl
pPet IPet Name
CallPet

33 of 37

What I end up with here is one Dog object, but two variables that reference that same dog. The
two variables each point to different interfaces. I needed to get to properties and methods on those
different interfaces, but for one object. This technique of working with one object and setting up
many variables to point to different interfaces of one object is called QueryInterface, or QI for
short.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 84

 Q&A

34 of 37

Well, we’ll take a little break here, and there are a lot of questions in the queue, and I’ll have
Jeremiah try to answer a couple of them.

(Jeremiah) Okay. We’ll get a few of these answered here for you. Okay.

Nick from Minnesota asked, “How do you integrate ArcObjects code into other applications such
as PowerPoint? Do you place code into a specific location on the hard drive or does PowerPoint
load the ArcObjects code into it?”

Well, you could really do this a couple of ways. You could work with a standalone application
that calls objects from many different places. But probably the easiest is what Rob was showing;
he placed the ArcObjects code directly inside PowerPoint. As we mentioned, when we have
ArcGIS, we develop within Visual Basic for Applications. That’s an editing environment that
automatically comes with ArcMap and ArcCatalog. Well, PowerPoint also has Visual Basic for
Applications, which we can open up and start working with ArcObjects as well. So that’d be the
easiest way.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 85

Tom from Burbank has a similar question. “Just to clarify, if I wanted to nest a map in
PowerPoint, like the demo, I still have to have ArcGIS loaded, right?”

And that is correct. We would also need to have ArcGIS loaded on our machine; that way, it
knows where to get the ArcObjects from.

Lisa asked, “Remind me, what is a CoClass?”

Well, there are different types of classes that we can work with. We have abstract classes,
CoClass, and regular classes that are sometimes referred to as instantiable classes. Most of this
lecture we’re working with CoClasses. Now, a CoClass is a special type of class that can be
created brand-new. Some objects we cannot create brand-new, and we have to have different
types of class representation for those. For instance, I could go in and I could create a data frame
programmatically, brand-new. That would be an example of a CoClass. There are other types of
classes that I can’t create brand-new; for instance, a row in a table. Although I can create it brand-
new, I have to get it from another object. So that’s a special type of class. I have to get that row
from a table, so a table creates another object. So a CoClass is just a special type of class that
we’re working with.

And Rob from Wyoming asked, “Where can I find the model diagrams for ArcObjects?”

Rob is actually going to go over that in the presentation, here in a little bit, and find out
specifically where we can get that. But when we install ArcGIS Desktop, we get the option to
install the developer kit. If we install the ArcGIS Developer Kit, the object model diagrams are all
stored in PDF format automatically on our machine, in the same location where ArcGIS is stored.
And, again, we’ll go over that in just a moment. We’ll turn it back over to Rob now.

(Rob) Alright. There was a question, "What if you write code at 8.1 and you want to use that
same code at 8.3 or at 9, will that 8.1 code be valid?"

And one of the answers to that is yes. And it has to do with interfaces. If ESRI needs to change a
class or change a property or method on an interface, one of the rules behind COM is that
interfaces won’t change over time. So once we’ve released a version of the software, the
interfaces on that version will not change, ever. If we need to make a change, we’ll add another

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 86

interface and carry out the changes on that new interface. If you decide when you get the new
version of the software, that you want to take advantage of the new interface, you could move
over to the new interface, but the idea is that your old code will not break when you load new
versions of the software.

Alright. We’ll go ahead and continue with a little bit of a demonstration here.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 87

 Demo scenario
ƒ Get a layer and change its name
ƒ When you add layers, they can have odd names
ƒ The names might be coded
ƒ You will see
ƒ Read diagrams to write code
ƒ QueryInterface
ƒ Get a neighboring object
ƒ Using a property
ƒ Using a method
IDocument MxDocument
IMxDocument SelectedLayer: ILayer
UpdateContents

*
Layer
ILayer Name: String
35 of 37

We’ve been working with dogs and farm animals, and now it’s time to work with real ArcObjects
classes. In my scenario, here, we’re going to work with a layer and change its name.

I bring up my ArcMap, here—earlier I added a layer, a Rivers layer. When you add a layer to a
map, the name of the layer takes on the name of the feature class. So, here, my feature class had
some odd coded name, and I want to change that name. Well, you might be saying, "Wait a
minute, Rob, I could just right-click on that layer and change its name; that’d be easy enough for
me to do." Well, sure, the user could make changes, but on the programming side, we can write
code to carry out those changes for the user and make it a little bit easier.

Alright. So here we’re just going to work with the Name property on Layer. Name is a good
example, because I’m going to have to do the five main things that you would normally do while
programming with ArcObjects. The first thing you would do is take a look at the diagrams. Look
at those diagrams and figure out how you’re going to write your code, and try to learn which
classes you’re going to need. When you find out which class you’re going to need, a lot of times,
on that class, there’ll be a lot of properties and methods scattered over several different interfaces.
So you may have to use the QueryInterface technique to switch interfaces.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 88

A lot of times you have to go to one neighbor to the next. Yeah, because you may start with one
object, but the object you need is maybe two or three or four objects away, and you may have to
move from one to the next until you get the one you need. Once you have that object, then you
can get to its properties and methods and run them.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 89

 ArcMap objects
ƒ Classes and their corresponding objects

Application

MxDocument

*
Map

*
Layer

When you start ArcMap, several objects get created in memory automatically. If you start a new
session of ArcMap, the Application object gets created. The Application object comes from the
Application class and it refers to the ArcMap window—like the status bar and the collection of
toolbars and everything that makes up the ArcMap window.

Also, an MxDocument object gets created. This is a map document. If you start a new session of
ArcMap and you haven’t really opened an MXD file, there’s one there—there’s an MxDocument
already there; it’s called Untitled. So these two objects are always there if you have ArcMap
going. If you look at the relationships in the diagram, an application is composed of an
MxDocument. There’s no multiplicity here, so it’s a one-to-one relationship. That means,
whenever you open ArcMap, you always have a map document open, too. Map documents are
composed of many maps. Here we have the one-to-many relationship, shown with the star. And
then maps are composed of layers. Again, we have the star and the composed of relationship.
Remember, maps are called data frames by the user. So here we have a world data frame—a
world map—and then a USA map. Each map has multiple layers—the world only has one layer
to it.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 90

You might be thinking, "Well, geez, I know these relationships, since I’ve been working with
ArcMap for a while. Of course I know that a map has layers and a document has many maps in
it." Well, that’s good. As a user, you may know a lot of the relationships that are shown on the
diagrams. The main purpose for the diagrams is for you to learn about how the objects are
organized and, mostly, when you start to work with some new objects, how those new objects are
organized and what their relationships are and what other objects they are connected to.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 91

 Create or find a starting object
ƒ These two objects are always available in VBA
ƒ Application
ƒ MxDocument
ƒ Shown on the ArcMap diagram

IApplication Application
IMxApplication

IDocument MxDocument
IMxDocument

Application and MxDocument are two places where you can start your programming work. I say
that because they are always available in VBA programming inside of ArcMap. Remember, if
you find a CoClass, you can always start with a CoClass, too.

Let’s take a look at these two on the real ArcMap diagram.

To open the diagrams, you’d go to the ArcObjects Developer Help page by going to your Start
button and wherever your ArcGIS is installed. The ArcObjects Developer Help is one of the
choices there. On the bottom is an object model diagrams link. If you click that, you get a listing
of all the possible object model diagrams. We want to go to the ArcMap diagram because we
want to work with the application, the map document.

So, I’ll click on the ArcMap diagram to bring up Adobe Acrobat Reader. The diagrams are stored
as PDF files. They’re somewhere in your installation folder whenever you install ArcGIS. If
you’ve installed the developer kit, you have PDF files for each of these object model diagrams.
They are poster size; this one is 42 by 34. You could print them out if you have a plotter large
enough. If you like, you could go to the ESRI Store at the ESRI Web site, and you can always
buy some of these diagrams. You could get the whole set already printed out.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 92

Alright, on the diagram here, as I go to the top of the diagram and work my way down this
ArcMap diagram, the first class that I come to is the Application class. It’s way up at the top; it’s
the highest one. Let’s zoom in on Application to see what it looks like. As I zoom in on this class,
I see that it is a class. It’s three-dimensional; it’s not shaded, so I can’t make an Application
object here. I don’t need to because it’s already been created. When I start ArcMap, it’s always
there and always available.

There are a lot of interfaces available. Each interface has properties and methods to it. If we look
to the right here, there’s a composed of relationship, and as I pan here, I see that an Application is
composed of one MxDocument. An MxDocument has its unique interfaces and each interface has
its unique properties and methods.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 93

 Start with MxDocument
ƒ MxDocument has a preset variable
ƒ Called ThisDocument
ƒ Points to IMxDocument

IApplication Application
IMxApplication

ThisDocument IDocument MxDocument

IMxDocument

MxDocument has a preset variable, ready to use, already assigned for it. It’s almost as if someone
declared and set this variable for you. It’s ready to go, ready to use.

We’ll go ahead and jump over to ArcMap and bring up the Visual Basic Editor and try out this
code. Alright, I’ve got a test subroutine here that I typed in before the session and I’m going to
use a message box. And here’s that ThisDocument variable. Notice that I didn’t have to declare or
set this variable; it’s just ready to go, ready to use. When I type in the doc, I see a list of
properties and methods.

What properties and methods are these?

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 94

 Start with MxDocument
ƒ MxDocument has a preset variable
ƒ Called ThisDocument
ƒ Points to IMxDocument

MsgBox ThisDocument.Title

IApplication Application
IMxApplication

ThisDocument IDocument MxDocument

IMxDocument

Well, the ThisDocument variable, as with all ArcObjects variables, must point to some interface.
ThisDocument points to the IDocument interface.

If we look at the object model diagram [goes to PDF] for MxDocument—let me scroll down here
and find that IDocument interface, and I’ll zoom in a little bit so we can read this—the variable
there, ThisDocument, points to IDocument. That means, through that variable we have access to
these seven properties. They’re read-only properties so we can get their values.

Back to my code here [in Microsoft Visual Basic]. I’m getting ready to type in some code. As I
use the code completion, here, I see that Title is one of the properties available. I’m going to
select that and we’ll go ahead and run this line of code to display the map document’s title. And
here it comes back and tells me the title is USA.mxd. You might use this code in some kind of an
If Then statement. Maybe you want different sets of code to run depending upon the map
document that’s open. Your If Then statement could get the title of the map document; if it’s one
map document, one set of code could run; if it’s another kind of a map document, you might run
another set of code.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 95

 Start with Application
ƒ The Application object also has a preset variable
ƒ Called Application
ƒ Points to the IApplication interface
ƒ Preset variables are only available for these known objects

Application IApplication Application

IMxApplication

ThisDocument IDocument MxDocument

IMxDocument

ThisDocument is a preset variable. A second preset variable is also available called Application.
Application points to the IApplication interface for the ArcMap application. These are the only
two preset variables available in VBA, so you won’t see them really noted in any way on the
object model diagrams. They’re the only ones available because these are the only known objects.
When you start ArcMap, you always have these two objects available and ready to go and then
you can add maps and layers and other things to the application or the map document to create
other objects.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 96

 Switch interfaces to IMxDocument
ƒ IDocument’s properties are read only

ThisDocument IDocument MxDocument

IMxDocument

Alright. Remember, looking at the diagram, the IDocument properties were read-only [goes to
object model diagram PDF] and there’s only about seven of them. Remember, we want to get to a
layer and change the layer name. So let’s scroll up here. We’re going to need to look for another
interface because IDocument had no way for us to get to a layer. Alright. Here I’m at the
IMxDocument interface. It has a lot of properties and a lot of methods. One of them will get me
to the active map. It’s called the FocusMap property. This gives you the active data frame. Down
a little bit is the selected layer property. This returns the ILayer interface of whatever layer
happens to be selected in the table of contents. We need this property; it’s on this interface, so we
need this interface too.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 97

 Switch interfaces to IMxDocument
ƒ IDocument’s properties are read only

ThisDocument IDocument MxDocument

IMxDocument

We’re going to have to switch interfaces. ThisDocument points to IDocument; we need the
variable pointed to IMxDocument.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 98

 Switch interfaces to IMxDocument
ƒ IDocument’s properties are read only
ƒ IMxDocument has write properties and can get neighbors
ƒ Declare a variable for IMxDocument

Dim pMxDoc As IMxDocument

ThisDocument IDocument MxDocument

IMxDocument

To get there, declare a variable as IMxDocument, and this is that QueryInterface technique to
switch interfaces on the same object.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 99

 Switch interfaces to IMxDocument
ƒ IDocument’s properties are read only
ƒ IMxDocument has write properties and can get neighbors
ƒ Declare a variable for IMxDocument
ƒ Set the variable equal to the existing variable

Dim pMxDoc As IMxDocument

Set pMxDoc = ThisDocument

ThisDocument IDocument MxDocument

pMxDoc IMxDocument

Set the variable—the new variable—equal to the variable you’ve already got, ThisDocument.
Now I’ve got two variables to work with in my current map document. I’m going to use this one
here to get the selected layer.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 100

 Get a layer
ƒ IMxDocument’s SelectedLayer property
ƒ Returns the ILayer interface of the selected layer

Dim pMxDoc As IMxDocument

Set pMxDoc = ThisDocument

MxDocument
pMxDoc IMxDocument SelectedLayer: ILayer

*
Layer
ILayer

On the diagram, we saw the SelectedLayer property returns the ILayer interface of the selected
layer.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 101

 Get a layer
ƒ IMxDocument’s SelectedLayer property
ƒ Returns the ILayer interface of the selected layer
ƒ Declare a variable to that returned interface

Dim pMxDoc As IMxDocument

Set pMxDoc = ThisDocument

Dim pLayer As ILayer

MxDocument
pMxDoc IMxDocument SelectedLayer: ILayer

*
Layer
ILayer

To get to a neighboring object, you need to declare a variable to the neighboring object. You
know which type to put here, or which interface to put here, when you look to the right of the
property, ILayer.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 102

 Get a layer
ƒ IMxDocument’s SelectedLayer property
ƒ Returns the ILayer interface of the selected layer
ƒ Declare a variable to that returned interface
ƒ Set the variable using Object.Property syntax
Dim pMxDoc As IMxDocument
Set pMxDoc = ThisDocument

Dim pLayer As ILayer

Set pLayer = pMxDoc.SelectedLayer
MxDocument
pMxDoc IMxDocument SelectedLayer: ILayer

*
Layer
pLayer ILayer

To get to the layer, then, run the SelectedLayer property, and that returns the ILayer interface to
this variable. So now pLayer points to ILayer.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 103

 Set a layer’s Name property
ƒ Check the property’s type
ƒ Property: Type
ƒ Name property needs a string

Dim pMxDoc As IMxDocument

Set pMxDoc = ThisDocument

Dim pLayer As ILayer

Set pLayer = pMxDoc.SelectedLayer

Layer
pLayer ILayer Name: String

The ILayer interface has the Name property. We want to change the name of the layer. In order to
change the name, I’m going to need a string. To the right of Name, you see String.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 104

 Set a layer’s Name property
ƒ Check the property’s type
ƒ Property: Type
ƒ Name property needs a string
ƒ Set property using Object.Property syntax
Dim pMxDoc As IMxDocument
Set pMxDoc = ThisDocument

Dim pLayer As ILayer

Set pLayer = pMxDoc.SelectedLayer

pLayer.Name = "Rivers"

Layer
pLayer ILayer Name: String

So here I can easily change the name of the river layer to Rivers by putting a text string in quotes.

Up to this point, I’ve worked with the Layer object and we’ve changed the name of the Layer
object.

If we ran the code, it would look like this [opens ArcMap]. The layer name would not change.
That’s because we’ve only changed the Layer object in active memory. There are other objects in
active memory, like the ArcMap table of contents window. We did not tell the table of contents
window to do anything. We need to tell this window to check all the objects it contains and read
their current status and refresh with all that current status. So we’ve got another line of code to
write.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 105

 One more thing…
ƒ Objects live in active memory
ƒ Setting the layer name changes the layer object
ƒ The ArcMap Table of Contents is also an object
ƒ Have to tell it to refresh with current memory settings
ƒ Use IMxDocument’s UpdateContents method

pMxDoc.UpdateContents

MxDocument
pMxDoc IMxDocument UpdateContents

Also, on the IMxDocument interface is the UpdateContents method. This causes the table of
contents to refresh. It rereads all the objects it contains—all their properties—and then refreshes
itself with those properties.

Alright [opens Microsoft Visual Basic editor]. So, I’ve got that code written here in a subroutine
called Change Layer Name. I switched interfaces, I got the layer with the SelectedLayer method,
I changed the rivers name, and I did the update contents—refresh the table of contents window.
Something that’s important here is the SelectedLayer property. This requires that a layer is
selected in the table of contents. Let me bring up ArcMap. Right now, no layers are selected in
the table of contents. If we ran that code, we’d get an error message. I need to select a layer in
order for that code to run. I’ve selected a layer. Now I’m going to go to the Tools > Macros
choice, and I’m going to run the Change Layer Name subroutine, and—look at that—the layer
name now changes to Rivers. In that code, we updated the River object—or the Layer object with
the name River, and we also updated the table of contents and caused it to refresh so we can now
see the layer name.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 106

 Review: ArcObjects programming
ƒ Locate a desired class, interface, property, or method

36 of 37

Well, to kind of wrap things up here, we’ve talked about programming with ArcObjects and using
the object model diagrams. The way to do that is to find a property or method on the diagram—
part of an interface or a class; that’s your destination. You want to run some property or method
there.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 107

 Review: ArcObjects programming
ƒ Locate a desired class, interface, property, or method
ƒ Pick a starting point: Application, ThisDocument, or CoClass

36 of 37

Then you need to find a starting point. If that particular object wasn’t a CoClass, you may have to
go somewhere else in the diagram to find a starting point. You might start with Application. You
might start with ThisDocument, depending upon what’s appropriate. Or, you might start with a
CoClass and write two lines of code to create an object out of that CoClass. Once you’ve defined
your starting point and your ending point, you really just connect the lines in between.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 108

 Review: ArcObjects programming
ƒ Locate a desired class, interface, property, or method
ƒ Pick a starting point: Application, ThisDocument, or CoClass
ƒ Navigate from one object to another, using QI as needed

36 of 37

And you go from one object to the next, declaring variables for the neighboring object, setting
them using a property or method on the object you already have.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 109

 Review and Q & A
¾ArcObjects classes have programmer interfaces
ƒ Declare variable to an interface (not to the class)
ƒ COM classes have multiple interfaces
ƒ Declare variables to the interface that has the property or method
you need
ƒ QueryInterface means to switch interfaces
ƒ Sometimes called QI for short
ƒ Set a new variable equal to one you already have

37 of 37

Well, in the end here, we talked about interface programming, and that all the ArcObjects classes
are COM classes; they have interfaces. When you declare your variables, you use those
interfaces. Sometimes you have to switch interfaces. If you have an object and you want to get to
a lot of its properties and methods, you may have to go from one interface to another using the
QueryInterface technique.

Well, we’ve a few questions in the queue. I’m going to turn it over to Jeremiah to answer those
questions.

(Jeremiah) Okay. Thanks, Rob.

Okay, Jen from Oklahoma City asked, “What’s the difference between an interface and the object
itself? When should you declare an interface and when should you declare the object itself?”

Well, when working with COM objects, we’ll always want to declare an object as an interface.
As for the first question, what’s the difference between an interface and an object, an interface is
just a piece of an object. So, I like to think of it as maybe looking at a car. You have a car, which
is an entire object. On that car there are many ways of getting in that car. There’s through the

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 110

trunk, so that might be one interface to get to the engine. There’s going to be another interface to
get into the interior through the door. There might be another interface for the trunk. So interfaces
are just different ways at getting at the object itself. So, when working with ArcObjects and these
COM objects, you’ll always want to declare an object as the interface itself.

Bruce asked, “Are there any plans to provide a .NET interface?”

In our upcoming releases, there won’t be any changes to ArcGIS Desktop itself. We’ll still be
using VBA, because it suits the needs of many of our users and it works just great. However, you
can access ArcObjects through .NET; it’s just another way that you can work with ArcObjects.
So, again, most people will be using ArcObjects through VBA, but you can also use it in other
standalone programming languages. And you can use some of the .NET programming languages
as well, such as VB .NET.

A few of you have asked this question. I’m going to read this one from Luke. It says, “You can
use C++, VBA, VB to develop with ArcObjects. Can I develop with JAVA?”

Right now, at ArcGIS, we are limited to working with COM languages within the Windows
environment. In our future release, ArcGIS 9, there are going to be new products that allow us to
work in additional languages as well as cross-platform, including JAVA. So we’re going to have
a product called ArcGIS Engine Developer Kit and another one called ArcGIS Server, which
you’ll be hearing more about.

And I have another related question here. This is from Tom in Billings and it says, “I’ve heard
about ArcEngine. Is this related to ArcObjects?”

Yes. This is another product that will be coming out in ArcGIS 9, ArcGIS Engine Developer Kit.
What this will allow you to do is create your own standalone applications using ArcObjects rather
than customizing the environment. But, again, most of what we’ve been going over today is using
VBA to integrate with ArcMap, ArcCatalog, just to customize our environment that is already
there.

I'll turn it back over to Rob.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 111

(Rob) Alright, thanks, Jeremiah. There’s one more question here that I’d like to answer. It says,
“How do you know which object model diagram to use?”

Well, a lot of times, when you’re programming with ArcObjects, you might be able to figure out
the diagram because of the objects you’re working with. If you’re working with the ArcMap
objects, the ArcMap diagram is pretty obvious. If you’re working with points and lines and
polygons, you might be able to figure out that the Geometry diagram is the one to use. Another
place to go, though, is on the ArcObjects Developer Help, one of the diagrams you can open—
one of the PDF files you can open—is called All Object Model Diagrams. When you open this
one, you see a listing of every single object model diagram. So here, if you know the class or you
know the property or method or you have some idea of what it might be called, you might be able
to use the search here—in the PDF—to find that property or method or class or interface. It’ll
move right to that interface and highlight it for you in the display area. So if you’re not sure
which classes to use, open this diagram, type in the name of the class, and it’ll find it for you.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 112

 For more information
ESRI Instructor-led Training
Introduction to Programming with ArcObjects (five days)
Advanced ArcObjects Component Development (three days)

Virtual Campus
VBA Workshop series (four workshops)
Introduction to Visual Basic 6 (six-module course)

Books
Getting to Know ArcObjects
Exploring ArcObjects

Online resources
ArcObjects Online (http://arcobjectsonline.esri.com)
VBA Toolkit CD (http://www.esri.com/vbatoolkitcd)

Alright. Those of you who would like to learn a little bit more about ArcObjects, there are a few
resources available. One place you might go is take one of the instructor-led training classes. We
do have a five-day class; it’s an introductory-level class, and takes you from not knowing much
about programming to knowing quite a bit about ArcObjects programming. Then there’s a three-
day advanced class. In the advanced class, you’ll learn how to do things like, remember earlier I
showed you how I made that extra ContentsView tab, the Catalog tab. You’d learn how to do that
in the advanced ArcObjects class.

There are also some Virtual Campus workshops. We have a series of these VBA workshops;
there are four of them already. And there’s also a six-module course, Introduction to Visual Basic
6.

There are a few books available from ESRI Press; one of them is called Getting to Know
ArcObjects. This is a 20-chapter, 40-exercise workbook. This is for introductory-level people
who don’t know a lot about programming, so the first few chapters teach you about VBA and
programming with If Then statements and that type of thing, and then it works slowly through
object model diagrams and working with interfaces, and the last 10 or so chapters work with

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 113

about 10 or 12 different object model diagrams to get you used to using some of the main
ArcObjects and programming with them.

There are a few online resources available. ArcObjects Online is almost an extension of your help
system. It describes how to use properties and methods, and you can look up different classes
there and interfaces. There are also white papers and sample code available. Then there’s the
VBA Toolkit CD. You can go to the ESRI Web site and request one of these; they are free and
they outline, mainly, VBA and how to get going with VBA, but the CD also includes several
white papers. It includes the first two chapters of Exploring ArcObjects. So the VBA Toolkit CD
is—it’s a free place to start. You might request one of these CDs from the Web site.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 114

 Thanks for attending

Alright, it looks like we’re out of time here for today. On behalf of ESRI, I’d like to thank you all
for attending.

Copyright © 2004 ESRI. All rights reserved. 115