Ext JS 3.0 and rails

Ext JS 3.0, the javascript framework, is now reaching beta 2 with a REST support. This could play along quite well with rails.

Go check it out here

Learning Ext JS

Packt Publishing recently published a new book Learning Ext JS

This book is well written and examples are easy to follow. although they are using PHP for most of the examples, it is fairly easy to convert to rails. It is a very good and time saving introduction to the Ext JS framework before digging into the official documentation.

Ext Scaffold returns

In a previous post, I spoke about Ext Js scaffolding with the plugin written by Martin Rehfeld

The exact description is the following :

The Ext Scaffold Generator Plugin is a drop-in replacement for Rails’ standard Scaffold Generator. Accepting the very same options, it will generate views using data grid and form components from the Ext JS Javascript GUI framework as well as a controller acting as an Ext-compatible JSON web service. The generated code can be used as a starting point for further implementation and outlines solutions on how to integrate the Ext JS library with Rails as a backend.

you can now find the plugin on github

and install it in your application like this :

ruby script/plugin install git://github.com/martinrehfeld/ext_scaffold.git

More info on GL Network

The advantage of this new version is that all actions happen in the same window (in your index view). The javascript code is now explicit and does not use magic helpers anymore. This is a great improvement. It allows an easy customization of the code and is a great resource to learn how to interact with the Ext JS framework and rails. It also facilitates integration in your current application.

Ext JS 2.0 and rails

I've always wanted a nice Javascript library that I could use as a framework for everything I build. Prototype and Script.a.cul.ous are nice but not sufficient to give the look and feel of a desktop app. So I've decided to implement Ext JS for my solution and to share this experience. There are basically 2 solutions if you want to integrate ext js in your application, the usage of a plugin called ext-scaffold (very easy to use) or the hard-way (manual coding).

Note : The current Rails 2.1 changes the way that rails renders json format. Therefore the plugin ext-scaffold will cease to work out of the box with rails 2.1. This plugin is still functionning perfectly with rails 2.0.2 and remains the fastest way to start playing with ext js and rails.

The plugin gives a good starting point and is functional for simple CRUD application. if you are looking for a quick way to provide a user interface to your tables without exposing the database, it's perfect.

From there, the need to do more complex things arise and then, you guessed it, it's time for the manual coding.