Book Image

Learning Ext JS

By : Colin Ramsay, Shea Frederick, Steve 'Cutter' Blades
Book Image

Learning Ext JS

By: Colin Ramsay, Shea Frederick, Steve 'Cutter' Blades

Overview of this book

<p>As more and more of our work is done through a web browser, and more businesses build web rather than desktop applications, users want web applications that look and feel like desktop applications. Ext JS is a JavaScript library that makes it (relatively) easy to create desktop-style user interfaces in a web application, including multiple windows, toolbars, drop-down menus, dialog boxes, and much more. Both Commercial and Open Source licenses are available for Ext JS.<br /><br />Ext JS has the unique advantage of being the only client-side UI library that also works as an application development library. Learning Ext JS will help you create rich, dynamic, and AJAX-enabled web applications that look good and perform beyond the expectations of your users.<br /><br />From the building blocks of the application layout, to complex dynamic Grids and Forms, this book will guide you through the basics of using Ext JS, giving you the knowledge required to create rich user experiences beyond typical web interfaces. It will also provide you with the tools you need to use AJAX, by consuming server-side data directly into the many interfaces of the Ext JS component library.</p>
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
15
Index

Chapter 10. Effects

The easiest thing to do when writing a software application is to switch into programmer mode—to focus on the code, and not on the end user experience. The architecture of a system is extremely important, but if the user is not satisfied with their interactions with the system, then the project can only be seen as a failure.

Ext JS contributes to solving this issue by providing many slick components that react well to user input and maintain a consistent look and feel across the entire framework. "Feel" is a very fuzzy word when it comes to software design; the way a link acts when you hover over it or the way in which a window appears onscreen can be the difference between a pleasurable experience and a confusing one.

Many of Ext JS's components have transitional animations built in by default, allowing you to smoothly expand a treenode rather than suddenly pop it open, or to shrink down a window to a specified button that can be used to...