How was it or the report of the first ExtJS conference

As you probably know, the first conference, organized by ExtJS LLC, was recently held, devoted both to new products (ExtJS 3.0, Ext Core, ExtGWT), and practical aspects of working with the framework, designing applications and working with new technologies (such as support for Adobe AIR) . Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the conference, but there was one of the readers of my blog, Sergey Kozlov, who kindly offered his help in organizing this short review.

The official schedule of the conference and the main reports are collected in a special section of the site ( you can see here ), the organizers promise to post the presentation materials soon.

The conference itself took place in a rather picturesque place in Orlando, Florida (USA). We will not hide the fact that the most basic and expected throughout the conference was the presentation of the new version of the ExtJS 3.0 framework, and although we briefly described the innovations , we will do it again, in fact, this is a free transcription of the main points from the key report by Aaron Conran .

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And so, we got:

• A new component ListView , in fact - a lightweight replacement of full-fledged tables (Grid). Key features:
  
  • lightness and simplicity (minimum amount of HTML code)
  • Column resizing and data sorting
  • Ability to use templates for column rendering
  • The description of the column layout is close to the Grid.
  • The width of the columns can be relative (should help in specifying the sizes, with which the grid has a little complexity)
  
  
• A component for drawing charts Chart , an extension of FlashComponent , designed to include flash modules in JS-code.
  
  • graphics extend standard BoxComponents
  • data is obtained from the standard data system (DataStore)
  • Different types of graphs (linear, circular, column, etc.)
  • Opportunities for customization of appearance
  • Charts are integrated into the event system.
  
  
• New ButtonGroup component - perfectly simulates parts of the MS Offoce 2007 (Ribbon) interface
  
  • column layout
  • can be rendered to any component, not just the toolbar
  
  
• Tab groups ( GroupTabs ) - in fact, an extended array of TabPanels
• In the table being edited, RowEditor appeared, the editor for the entire row as a pop-up window at once.
• The new system of event handlers mon () , which allows you to avoid or reduce memory leaks. Many ExtJS components are already using the new system. To simplify understanding, here is an example: it used to be this.el.on ('click', ...) , now you can write this: mon.mon (this.el, 'click', ...)
  
• The Buttons component can now take on any size and is compatible with any layouts.
• The toolbar automatically displaces non-fit buttons in an additional menu around the edge of the visible area. The same is available in the menu.
  
• AnchorTip is an extended prompting component that can contain any type of content inside.
• Buffered GridView - now you can render only visible rows (automatically)
• The debugging console, an approximate analogue of Firebug, is mainly focused on specific moments of ExtJS, such as showing the structure of components in the specified object, etc.
• New layouts (HBox / VBox)
  
• New system of interaction with the server - Ext.Direct
  
  • On the client side, an Ajax request is responsible for collecting parameters, sending a request and receiving a response, decoding it, and generating events.
  • The server side for working with Direct should implement request routing and API (examples will be available for a variety of platforms, while there is for PHP)
  • Providers for access to data: JsonProvider, RemotingProvider, PollingProvider, LongPollingProvider and FlashProvider (most interesting, I even started to do this myself, but so far not included in the distribution, so we expect). The last two providers allow implementing server-push (CometD) technology. Unfortunately, the direct question is whether FlashProvider can be used in conjunction with the DataStore for data processing, it is said that it is not (apparently, this will be clarified in the release version).
    
  
  
• Global processing of keyboard events for the entire application, as well as individual work with each container
• Changes in CSS - the division into two parts, the visual and structural part.

Other reports were, of course, no less interesting. For example, for developers there were original workshops where they sorted out examples and the creation of their own components in detail.



Interestingly, the Ext GWT session was of relatively little interest. Apparently, at the conference there were few developers using this product. In this regard, some conclusions are suggested to the account of a possible rejection of this project in general or to re-allocate it as an independent project outside ExtJS LLC, which correlates with management statements that they are trying to be independent of the server part and want to concentrate only on client technologies.

A question was asked to the public who wrote the server part on what. About 50% - Java, about 30% - PHP and .NET, the rest is divided between minorities - Ruby, Python, Perl, etc. This is more interesting - since ExtGWT is still a Java world. However, let's see how events will develop, in the meantime, they have released a new version of ExtGWT.

During the Industrial Panels session, a representative of various companies shared their practical experience in using the framework as part of their projects, and anyone could torment the speakers with questions. It was interesting to hear about the IE browser problem, while one of the participants resolved the issue radically. They simply refused to support IE browser at all, deciding that it would be cheaper to send their own person to clients for installation with all of Firefox. A pragmatic and fresh approach, it should be noted (we solved this problem a little differently). By the way, this is one of the presentations already posted online ( here ).



Jack Slocum (Jack Slocum, Chief Software Architect and Founder) announced that Marktplace will be launched in the near future, similar to the AppStore, where developers will be able to trade their own components. Although I would say analogue rather AIR Marketplace from Adobe.

A visual editor for creating interfaces (the demo that Jack Slocum laid out back in November last year ) is expected with the release of version 3.1. This is exactly what we very much expect.

What was pleasantly surprised that everyone who made pre-orders for ExtJS 3.0 means a commercial license, to receive a 20% discount, 40% discount for those who have a license for previous versions. So do not be particularly afraid that the new version will be much more expensive, we are already translating our projects or are starting only on the 3rd version.

And now a few non-technical notes, because apart from the facts, the atmosphere of the conference itself is important.



During the dinners one could meet and talk to people whom you have long known on the forum. For example, Sergei was spared to dine at the same table with Animal (the most active participant in the forum), who in life turned out to be equally sympathetic and interesting. During the discussion of projects, he shared his thoughts on the architecture of Ext-based applications. In response, he was told about the Netzke framework.

On the second morning, when RC1 was released for the third version, Aaron Conran said that he didn’t sleep for a minute (as was evident in his very red eyes), and Jack only 9 minutes later that night. This may explain the fact that Jack's key-note was so short (not more than 10 minutes) that he went out with a redbull tin in his hand, and that he clearly expressed his relief when he was not asked questions.



The organization of the conference is at the luxury level, which was to be expected from a 5-star hotel. Delicious dinners, and almost dancing waiters with dishes around the tables while serving the main dish. And also in the morning, after the first session, coffee was given very tasty sweets.

By the way, participants were given coffee cups with symbols of the company, from which many enthusiastically drank coffee throughout the conference. Damn, and I want this!

Thanks to Sergey, answers to some of my questions were received, prepared in advance. Perhaps this is useful to you.



Is ExtJS going along the Dojo path, divided into three projects (Dijij - visual components, Dojo core and Dojox all sorts of chips). Already there has been a division into the main library, adapters.
- No, no further separation is planned.

Will the list of adapters be expanded, for example, using new CSS engines, Dojo or other toolkits?
- Not.

In addition to GWT, is the expansion of server-side support planned, for example, towards PHP or Ruby / Python? The same competitor Dojo won a place in the Zend Framework, what are the plans for supporting PHP and, in general, the server part?
- According to some comments, it became clear that at the moment they want to stay and develop as a library, independent of the technologies used on the server. Nevertheless, examples for working with Ext.Direct will include java, ruby, php, .net code.

Is it planned to create some kind of visual interface constructor, or integration with existing ones, for example, GUIStudio? Or creating a plugin for Apatana IDE?
- Yes, it will be included in 3.1

Will support be introduced to the on-demand component download library?
“They don’t plan on-demand support, but Aaron said that they are working on a mechanism for declaring dependencies between Ext classes. I think it will be quite possible to use this later for dynamic component loading.

That's probably all.

In conclusion, I want to sincerely thank Sergey Kozlov ( Sergei Kozlov) , who provided the entries and asked my questions to the conference organizers. He is the author and photos accompanying this review. Sergey is also known as the author of Netzke , a young framework designed for component-oriented application development based on ExtJS and Ruby-on-Rails. His site playcode.nl , you can also follow the twitter tape ( twitter.com/skozlov ).