Ext, an awesome JS toolkit

This post is for people making a fat web client. If you are going to be doing something small and a little more sane, then this post isn't for you. Turn around now. If you've considered creating a web app with flash, keep reading.

Ext is a toolkit for creating a web gui with javascript. It's for creating something like yahoo's new mail app. You create accordion panels, forms, fields, everything from javascript. You can use markup, but that will actually make more work for you. It's best just to let the library work it's magic and accept what it's got.

And, man, does it have a lot. It's got client side validations, data readers (more about them in a second), grid controls with built in searching and column sorting. Really, if you've thought about making an actual web application then I highly suggest you look at Ext.

Data readers are where it's at in Ext. Say you prototype out a simple contacts search. You might have a form where you can search by their first name, last name, or zip code. You send up your search query and get back a chunk of code that has the matching contact information. Prototyping that can be difficult if you are using static HTML but if you and Ext DataReader you can put in test data that your form will be populated with once the search is completed. This DataReader object will accept data in several formats including XML and JSON.

It gets better. The DataReader object can also take a url. So it is possible to prototype out your view and test it with the exact object and type of data it would normally use. Then, when you have your controller serving up the data in the format you need, you point your DataReader to the correct url and you're done.

This is great when you want a clear separation from your models and your views. This is exactly what I blogged about earlier. This lets your front end developers not have to worry about the back end and let's your programers do what they are good at: coding.