Book Image

Ext.NET Web Application Development

By : Anup K Shah
Book Image

Ext.NET Web Application Development

By: Anup K Shah

Overview of this book

To build a rich internet application, you need to integrate a powerful client side JavaScript framework with a server side framework. Ext.NET achieves this by integrating Sencha's Ext JS framework with the power of ASP.NET. The result ñ a sophisticated framework offering a vast array of controls, layout, and powerful AJAX and server bindings, which can be used to build rich, highly usable web applications. "Ext.NET Web Application Development" shows you how to build rich applications using Ext.NET. Examples guide you through Ext.NET's various components using both ASP.NET Web Forms and MVC examples. You will also see how Ext.NET handles data binding and server integration. You will also learn how to create reusable components and put them together in great looking applications. This book guides you through the various Ext.NET components and capabilities to enable you to create highly usable Ext.NET components and web applications. You will learn about various UI components and numerous layout options through examples. You will see how the AJAX architecture enables you to create powerful data-oriented applications easily. This book will also teach you how to create reusable custom components to suit your needs. "Ext.NET Web Application Development" shows you how to create rich and usable applications using Ext.NET through numerous examples.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Ext.NET Web Application Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
8
Trees and Tabs with Ext.NET
Index

Getting Ext.NET


We will now look at what is involved in downloading the Ext.NET framework.

Choosing the right Ext.NET license

The first thing to note is that Ext.NET is dual licensed and you can choose between the following:

  • Ext.NET Pro: For commercial closed-source projects

  • Ext.NET Community: For open source AGPL licensed projects

The differences between the two are very minimal. In the Ext.NET Pro release there is an option to render resources (JavaScript, CSS, and images) from a global Content Delivery Network. The Community version does not have this option. The Pro version also does some license checking. Other than that, the code is the same.

If your own project is licensed with the AGPL license, then you can use the Community license. If you are producing a closed source project, then you should purchase an Ext.NET Pro license. The Pro license includes a license to the underlying Ext JS framework so you do not have to purchase both. The Pro license also comes with a license key that can be added to Web.config or Global.asax without which you would see a message appearing on any web pages that are not running locally. This message warns about the software being unlicensed. The FAQs at Ext.NET's download page, http://ext.net/download/, has further details and can help you decide which license is suitable for your project.

Downloading Ext.NET

There are a number of ways you can download Ext.NET:

From the Ext.NET download site: http://ext.net/download/

All these options, except the NuGet option, include the full source code so you can choose whether to build the solution yourself or use the supplied assemblies. Downloading the source code is useful to at least explore how Ext.NET has been put together. The SVN option will include a pre-release source code if you want bug fixes more quickly than official releases.

NuGet is a popular Visual Studio extension to manage packages for you and will install the Ext.NET binaries to your web project's bin folder. The download from Ext.NET is a ZIP file. The DLLs that you will find are as follows:

  • Ext.Net.dll: The Main Ext.NET assembly

  • Ext.Net.pdb: The debugging symbols

  • Ext.Net.xml: The IntelliSense help text for the assembly when you are coding

  • Ext.Net.Utilities.dll: Additional utilities from the Ext.NET framework

  • Ext.Net.Utilities.xml: IntelliSense help text

  • NewtonSoft.Json.dll: The Json.NET framework that Ext.NET uses

  • NewtonSoft.Json.xml: The Json.NET IntelliSense

  • Transformer.NET.dll: A .NET template parsing and transformation library

  • Transformer.NET.xml: The Transformer.NET IntelliSense

Json.NET is itself a popular open source .NET library for working with JSON. It is extremely effective at serializing .NET into JSON and deserialization from JSON to .NET. So much so that Microsoft itself has started using it instead of some of its own JSON serializers. More information about Json.NET can be found at its website: http://james.newtonking.com/pages/json-net.aspx.

In addition to the DLLs, the following text files are also available and worth reading:

  • README.txt

  • CHANGELOG.txt

  • LICENSE.txt

Compiling (if needed)

If you have opted for the Ext.NET Premium Support Subscription service, amongst other benefits, you get access to their latest source code. So, for example, any bug fixes or feature requests reported by you or others in the community that have recently been implemented are available immediately for you to compile and use.

If you go for this option, Ext.NET will send you instructions on how to connect to the public SVN code repository to download the latest code. You can then open the Visual Studio solution file and compile the code manually. If you then look in the Ext.Net project's bin\Debug or bin\Release directory (depending on which mode you want) you will find the same DLLs as above.

You can then include the output assemblies in your own solution. This means you do not need to compile their source code every time you compile your own solution; only when you update your local Ext.NET code from their SVN repository.