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

Window management

In a rich Internet application, it can be desirable to allow the user to have many windows open simultaneously, reviewing a variety of information without having to navigate to separate pages. Ext JS allows for this: you can create any number of non-modal windows and manipulate them as you see fit. However, we face a problem when using a multitude of windows—how do we manage them as a group? For example, the users may wish to clear their workspace by minimizing all open windows. We can achieve this functionality, and more, by using a window group.

Default window manager behavior

When you create an Ext.Window, it will automatically be assigned to a default Ext.WindowGroup which, by default, can always be referred to via the Ext.WindowMgr class. However, you can create as many additional WindowGroups as your application requires, assigning windows to them via the manager configuration option.

Why would your application require a method of grouping windows? Well, multiple...