[BNM] Anyone used the JavaScript library Ext JS?

[Acumen]

Steve/Wayne,

We use Ext JS in a number of prototype and internal apps.

First, as Wayne said the grid paging solves any issues with dataset size.
We've got an app right now that creates about 40-50 data
stores/readers/grids and it still performs well.

However, if you use Ext, make sure you ajax everything. It's not cool to
load 500k of libraries on every page hit.

We don't write in Java but do use PHP Ext, which is a fabulous wrapper that
covers pretty much all of Ext2.0's functions:

  http://php-ext.quimera-solutions.com/

You just need to deal with the mindbend that is another wrapper/framework
but it's all worth it.

Debugging is always an issue with frameworks as large as this, you need to
really appreciate the depth of the problems that can arise before you get
too stuck in with a first project on this. Write a couple of demo apps
first. If you use BorderLayout you can however flip through all your
elements nicely in the DOM which is some small mitigation.

There are a few previous threads on this, do check em out, or email me with
any specific Q's.

Ta,

Leo

-----Original Message-----
From: bnmlist-bounces at brightonnewmedia.org
[mailto:bnmlist-bounces at brightonnewmedia.org] On Behalf Of Wayne Douglas
Sent: 17 October 2008 10:42
To: Brighton New Media
Subject: Re: [BNM] Anyone used the JavaScript library Ext JS?

Steve Esson wrote:
> Has anyone used Ext JS? What's the experience like?
>
> http://extjs.com/
>
> In particular I'm interested to know how the grid components perform with
> large datasets.
>
> Thanks
> Steve
>
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
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> 19:12
>  
>
>   
Excellent framework - my fave to use for intranet style apps - Jack and 
his crew have gone ballistic with this. It works well with any server 
side framework that can pump out JSON and is sooooo stable and nice to 
work with. I've used it in a number of projects.

The framework itself has an adapter setup which allows you to plug in 
your favorite external framework for all the background crunching - such 
as JQuery, Prototype etc - though I have read benchmarks that put the 
EXT core as the fastest - so really only swap that out if you're already 
using another framework and want to save download traffic.

One gotcha with the grid - and believe me - this is well worth living 
with ( the sorting, filtering and plugins available for the grid are 
second to none ) is that if you're using it for report style output - as 
we have in some instances - you're not going to be able to print the 
reports out of the box. You're going to have to create a printable 
verison link that links to a standard HTML output of the data. 

It can handle server side paging so it'll only get the JSON it needs but 
as far as large datasets on the client go - if anything has a good 
chance of being able to perform well - this is the one. Have a play 
about with the samples - read the excellent API docs and shoot me a q 
off list if you need any more pointers :)

The Java implementation looks interesting too, I've been meaning to play 
about with that for a while!!

w://




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