Ext JS

[Gordon Holfelder]

Hi All-

I saw the sample website built using Ext JS and would like to experiment with this paradigm as well. I've started going through a tutorial and I really don't want to mix jQuery into the mix. Is it possible to setup a WebServer that just serves pages and processing Ajax requests?

Thanks in advance for you suggestions.
Gordon

[Bruce]

Hi Gordon,

yes, it is possible. The most obvious way is to make your own gzipall.bat file, including whatever Javascript you want, and excluding whatever you don't want.

Some words of cautions regarding ExtJs are perhaps appropriate here. This is not meant to turn you off, but merely to perhaps raise some issues you may not have thought of. Choosing a client-side-framework is a big deal, and has implications down the road.

a) Licensing is the biggest hurdle, and one of the primary reasons we didn't choose ExtJs for NetTalk 5. In short you either need to purchase a commercial license from them, or release your app under the GPL license. While it's easy to ignore this in the short term, the longer-term ramifications can be substantial.

b) the NetTalk templates are obviously optimized to make use of the jQuery framework. I wish I could just add support for ExtJs as well, but there just aren't the resources to currently do that. I know Patrick de Laet started a project to develop NetTalk templates for ExtJs, and Pratik Patel I think has done some work on that as well - but in the long run you may want to consider the long-term gains and losses from stepping away from the mid-stream. Ultimately, it's _templates_ that provide the productivity gains we enjoy, not the framework. Moving from a template driven system to a hand-coded system does have implications for long-term maintainability and extendability.

c) In chatting to users I've noticed that many do like the "windows program" style ExtJs delivers. Be aware that this is a _css_ issue though, not a _framework_ issue. If you want to make a jQuery app look like Windows (which frankly, personally, I don't) that's simply a case of getting the Css right.

As I say, the above considerations are not meant to scare you away - just to cover some bases you may not have thought of. If there is, for example, functionality in ExtJs you miss in NetTalk then please, by all means, post here so I can give some indication of the prospects of that functionality in NetTalk. From a "future direction" point of view it's also a good idea to have a look at the jQueryUI roadmap. (http://wiki.jqueryui.com/w/page/12137947/FrontPage). While we're not limited to those UI elements (we're also incorporating some plugins, and writing our own plugins), we'll be supporting all the jQuery UI widgets as they become available.

Cheers
Bruce

[Gordon Holfelder]

Hello Bruce-

I don't believe the licensing is an issue for us. We are willing to purchase a commercial license(s) for our application and I don't believe that we would have a problem. If I'm not reading their license correctly, let me know.

I understand the reluctance to invest resources in this framework. It IS a very different paradigm and probably not very applicable to a template environment.I have sent an email to Pratik Patel, but I don't know how to reach Patrick de Laet. We'll see if I can get some pointers from that resource. In our case the templates are just causing extra work. I'd like to reuse our business objects, but I keep having to code around the templates. It's just the way our app has been built. It's what happens when you've worked on a small number of apps that has grown in size for such a long time.

The windows look is desired only because ultimately that's our goal. For those new apps that enhance our product, where we are broadening access, NetTalk works great. Trying to replace some of our core functionality is where we run into problems. I think the SAS environment is where our market is moving and we need to figure out how to migrate the business logic. This may not be the answer, but it's worth trying some prototypes just to see.

I'm intrigued by the data store functionality that is in the EXT JS framework. I believe that this would actually simplify my ability to reuse our business layer. I've only just started with this and as always the reality of keeping our existing business commitments doesn't allow me to spend a lot of time on prototype development. It appears that I can build the entire UI outside of the server and then just integrate the update and business logic. For this to work I would probably just need to trap the AJAX requests and respond appropriately. Any suggestions to what embeds I would use for this?

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions.
Regards,
Gordon

[Bruce]

Hi Gordon,

As long as you're aware of the commercial license implications, that's all that matters.

>> I understand the reluctance to invest resources in this framework. It IS a very different paradigm and probably not very applicable to a template environment.

actually, no. It's a very simple paradigm and ideally suited to templates. It just makes NetTalk $595 more expensive per developer <g>.

>> In our case the templates are just causing extra work. I'd like to reuse our business objects, but I keep having to code around the templates.

More information on the problems you are encountering are always welcome. I can't promise anything, but I can promise that no-information leads to no improvement <g>.

>> The windows look is desired only because ultimately that's our goal.

This is just styling, and can be done in any of the frameworks. If others are interested they should vote here. Perhaps we can make a "Windows" jQuery theme.

>> For this to work I would probably just need to trap the AJAX requests and respond appropriately. Any suggestions to what embeds I would use for this?

All incoming requests flow through the WebHandler procedure, so you can trap them here.
Or, depending on the way the request is made, you can use a NetWebPage to catch requests.

cheers
Bruce