It’s official, ExtJS 2.0 has landed.  ExtJS is one of the best toolkits out there for achieving ajax applications that rival desktop applications in interface richness.  Some of the new features in 2.0.

•  Grouping & Group Summary fields: Allows you to group related grid items and create summary rows.  Data sorts within each group set instead of across the grid.
• Scrolling tabs: You can now optimize screen Real Estate by allowing tabs to scroll off the tab par (Ala firefox)
• Anchor Layouts: Tack the dimensions of form elements to their parent container.
• Column Tree: The best of both worlds, integrate the powerful extjs grid & tree widgets

I should also point out that ExtJS continues its tradition of excellent documentation with a new API documentation center and rich set of demo applications to work from.   Check out ExtJS 2.0 here:http://extjs.com/blog/2007/12/04/ext-20-final-released/

Perhaps the strongest widget in the Ext toolbox is the powerful grid tool.  In 2.0 it gets even stronger.

Some of the new features:

• Ability to collapse entire grid pane
• Ability to hide and display columns from within the interface
• Support for totals, averages and other summary columns
• Group rows by sort.

ExtJS 2.0 is already in beta & ready for preliminary development today and the production release is just around the corner.  Check it out here:

http://extjs.com/

Here’s a great example of an ExtJS interface to a real application.  While Ext is much better suited to RIA’s and admin screens than a full blown website frontend.  This is an admirable and polished attempt to build an interface to a well known tool using a powerful Javascript framework.  It’s also a great thing to disect and understand.

Find the Theme Here: http://extjswordpress.net/ 

Via   Weblog Tools Collection

The Ext team is proud to announce that Ext v2.0 Beta 1 is available
for download. This release of the Ext framework features updated portal
and desktop examples, documentation updates, and bug fixes.

New Sample Application Updates

In our last release, we introduced two new sample applications which
were truly a hit with the development community. The two applications,
Web Desktop and Customizing: Portals were excellent examples of the
capabilities of the new Ext 2.0 framework. For the beta release, we
have dramatically improved the features and functionality of both. The
Web Desktop has been drastically enhanced to include a start menu as
well as functional icons on the desktop. It truly looks like you’re
working within an operating system like Windows.

Available from EXTjs.com

The first Alpha of EXT 2.0 has landed  Some of the new features are:

• Scrolling Tabs
• Highly configurable single-level column grouping capabilities as well as summary rollups at the group level.
• Anchor layout in forms to ensure a consistent size and position for form fields regardless of browser size.
• Treeviews that support additional columns for each leaf node.

Along with launch of 2.0 alpha, there’s a revised API documentation system with a streamlined ability for bookmarking & new samples.

Find More information here:
http://extjs.com/blog/2007/09/28/ext-20-alpha-release/

Earlier this month I posted on a powerful ExtJS extension for handling multiple file uploads. Today we will delve deeper into this widget and explore handling the uploads on the server end.

Keep reading →

Rich, powerful AJAX tables provide a greater impact in usability to web applications than just about any other widget.  One of the best of these is the extJS table. Some highlights:

• Inline editing based on data type (calendar for date, spinner for numeric etc)
• Validation of inline edits
• Custom sorts
• Able to utilize existing tables, XML data files & JSON data
• Paging & Remote data support

More information on ExtJS table will be coming in part 3 of the extJS POG tutorial

In part one we discussed the general layout and design of the application. In this chapter we will build the server side in the storage for the application using the powerful PHP object generator (POG).

Keep reading →

File Uploads with Progress Bars & Batch File uploads are two incredibly useful tools for the AJAX toolbox. This widget from Ariadne.com packs a powerful punch for adding these features to your projects.

AJAX Upload Widget

This is part one of a multipart tutorial on AJAX application construction. Today we will be building a Software Project Scheduling application based on Joel Spolsky’s Painless Software Schedules system.

The application will be built using the Php Object Generator, and ExtJS Framework.

Keep reading →