What are Quick Project templates?
A template is a collection of files that are copied into a new Quick Project folder. When creating a new Quick Project in ArcPad, if default is chosen in the Template drop-down list, a default Quick Project is created with three shapefiles: point.shp, line.shp, and polygon.shp. These are the same files created in ArcPad 8's Quick Project tool.
In ArcPad 10 and later, installed with ArcPad are four sample templates you can use in place of the default template: Fire Perimeter, Tree Register and Sign Survey, and Short Shoreline Assessment (Short Shoreline Assessment is only available on PCs). More information on these templates can be found by tapping the Info tool next to the drop-down box on the Quick Project dialog box. You can also make your own templates and have them appear in this list.
A template is a ZIP file containing all the layers that make up the template. An APM file called Template.apm references all of these layer files. You can create your template from any layers. The layers can be shapefiles, AXF layers, or raster layers. Place your template's ZIP file in the \\Shared Documents\ArcPad\Templates folder so they appear in the Template drop-down list in ArcPad.
Every time you choose to create a new Quick Project in ArcPad, and you nominate a template, you create a new set of files based on the template; however, without editing your original files.
Some examples of how templates can be used are:
- Provide a common basemap and empty operational layers for reuse—Users that collect new data, may often reuse the same basemap data, but collect new features in an operational data layer. You can create a template that contains the basemap layers, and one or more schema only operational layers. Each time the user creates a new quick project with your template, they start with the recognizable basemap, and a new empty layer or layers in which to collect data.
- Manage multiple field project templates for a user—Users may have different data collection scenarios that require different information to be collected. Organizing projects into templates, can help the field worker organize their projects in an orderly fashion, because all new projects are created with uniform naming conventions (that is, Quick Project folder names automatically include date and time).
- Manage the use of an AFX file by multiple users—Since ArcPad 7.1, data checked out and back into ArcMap, is stored in an AXF file. AXF files created by the ArcPad Data Manager can be copied many times, each one edited, and each of the copies can be checked back into the source geodatabase. By inserting an AXF file into a template, a copy of the AXF is made each time you create a new quick project. Edits the user makes in their copy of the AXF file can be checked back into the geodatabase using the Get Data from ArcPad tool in the ArcPad Data Manager.