Widgets and Advanced Ext JS

Abstract

In the previous chapter we began our look at Ext JS by seeing some of the basics of its usage, but we focused primarily on the general utility-type aspects of the library. We only touched on widgets in a limited way, and as it happens, Ext JS is primarily known for its widgets. So, in this chapter we’ll focus almost entirely on the widgets. We’ll look at some of the more “advanced,” relatively speaking, topics in Ext JS. Here I refer to things like data handling and binding, drag and drop, and state management. Because all the applications in this book will make use of it, we’ll also take a look at Google’s Gears browser extension. While Ext JS is in no way tied or dependent on it, I think you’ll see how Ext JS works with Gears very well and opens up a whole new world of possibilities for our development efforts.