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Ext v1.0 and The Domino Framework
Yesterday's post was actually written earlier in the week before work took me away for a couple of days. Two days are a long time in Internetland. Long enough for the naming convention I was proposing to become obsolete.
Why? Because the creator of YUI Ext, Jack Slocum, has released v1.0 Alpha and duly renamed it to simply Ext. This means that all instances of YAHOO.ext in code based on v.033 will need changing to Ext.
Before:
YAHOO.ext.grid.ColumnModel()
After:
Ext.grid.ColumnModel()
As I understand it, the project is trying to break off from its association with and reliance on Yahoo! This is backed-up by the announcement that it will one day work with jQuery as the base library. Which is great news, as a lot of people must be put off by the idea of using the rather large YUI libraries.
That said, also in the news is that Yahoo! are offering free hosting of their YUI code files. This comes with GZip and clever cache controls. If enough people point to the Yahoo! hosted versions it will save users a lot of bandwidth.
But what does all this mean for the Domino framework I'm proposing. Well, most obviously, it needs a new namespace. Instead of YAHOO.ext.Domino I'm thinking maybe just Domino, Dominext or DExt. Not that it really matters. More importantly the release of v1 brings us loads more goodies to play with. See the Ext v1.0a examples for the whole list. Make sure you see the MessageBox dialogs, the Form's date picker and the Menu control.
It also means I have my work cut out, as the behind the scenes changes to the code are fairly radical and I need to start from scratch pretty much. Karen's away with the kids this weekend though, so I've got the house to myself. Hopefully I'll get to spend most of it hacking away.
Comments
Jack Ratcliff (Fri 23 Feb 2007 05:24 AM) website / e-mail
Yes, definitely come up with your own namespace. I'm using DWT as the namespace for my Domino Web Tools project.
Oh, did you see that his new grid also supports locked columns? Notes can't do that, can it. :)
I think with three different Domino+Ext frameworks backed by you, Rich, and myself, domino web developers will finally get what IBM should have given us years ago. No more will developers have to spend so much time hacking at Domino to get something working on the web. More time can be spent solving business problems. This is RAD for domino!
Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to download my framework to look at. I have his tree control working pretty well with domino outlines using the xml generated from outline?ReadEntries. It might help get you started with your thoughts of using JSON from ReadEntries.
Have fun this weekend. This stuff is addicting!
Michael (Fri 23 Feb 2007 08:42 AM)
Ditching the YUI and being compatible with jQuery is more of a co-incidence really. Jack released his DomQuery results and it was beating the pants off of jQuery and others in the benchmarks. After lots of discussion, they found that with a few tweaks, Ext could be compatible with jQuery. I wouldn't read into it any more than that.
Tim Tripcony (Fri 23 Feb 2007 08:47 AM) website / e-mail
I'm a rabid fan of Jack's work. I've been writing an entire web-based IDE for Domino (called XIDED), and his code gave my UI a gigantic leap forward.
Rich Waters (Fri 23 Feb 2007 09:55 AM) website / e-mail
"behind the scenes changes to the code are fairly radical and I need to start from scratch pretty much"
I was up late last night pretty much starting over as well. The new Ext stuff looks amazing though.
Also if people are interested in working together at any point instead of competing I would gladly do so :)
Eli Harris (Fri 23 Feb 2007 10:47 AM) website / e-mail
Rich Waters and I met at Lotusphere to discuss the possibility of working together on a proposed Domino EXT Framework as well. We have already started working on basics such as naming conventions, and architecture/coding standards.
It is still pretty rough, but it is getting there.
Also, a few weeks ago when I noticed that Jack had renamed the YUIEXT to simply EXT, I decided to setup a Sourceforge project for Rich and I in anticipation that this project would be such a huge undertaking that it would need this.
We want as much participation as possible on this project as it will give all Domino developers a way to create amazing Web interfaces for their applications in a very rapid time frame. Like Jack Ratcliff said 'RAD for Domino'.
For everyone who is interested, please come join the project at {Link} I will post the naming conventions we have been working on and you can give your feedback on how we can make them better.
My company recently got funded, so I will be spending most of my time working on this project. Jake, you have incredible talent and I hope that you will join us on this incredible undertaking. Maybe even get paid to work on the project....
Domino developers worldwide will all benefit and make more money in shorter amounts of time, from this project.
I don't really care who takes the credit for the Domino Ext Framework, as long as we do it!
Eli
Jordan (Fri 23 Feb 2007 11:35 AM) e-mail
Jake... can you make the prototype site available for download?
Thanks,
Jordan
Michael (Fri 23 Feb 2007 11:42 AM)
Here's a radical thought. If we can't agree on a common end-point (uses of Ext for Domino), let's agree on a common namespace if you will as we are likely (hopefully) to share pieces of code. Save me the search and replace action.
Somehow I think Jake will use Codestore.Ext..... :) How's that for branding.
Jake Howlett (Fri 23 Feb 2007 11:51 AM)
Michael. The thought crossed my mind but I think I'll go with DExt. Got a nice ring to it and easy to remember.
Eli Harris (Fri 23 Feb 2007 12:06 PM) website / e-mail
Jake, I like DExt also. I will use this in my specification.
Jack Ratcliff (Fri 23 Feb 2007 12:27 PM) website / e-mail
Actually, I think each framework should have it's OWN namespace so that if you decide to use more than one of the frameworks, you can, without worrying that collisions will occur because we have used the same method/property names.
Use more than one you say...Absolutely! Just think about it. You can pick the pieces of each framework that meets your needs, and with each one using their own namespace, you can mash up your application knowing that each will work.
So, for example, assume the following namespaces:
DWT = Domino Web Tools framework
DExt = Jake's framework
DYUI = Rich and Eli's framework
You could then pick from each framework the pieces you need. Whether because you like one over the other, or, say only one has this certain feature, etc.
var outline = new DExt.Domino.Outline("OutlineName")
var view = new DWT.widget.DominoUIView("ViewName")
var doc = new DYUI.Domino.Document("unid")
Make sense? Jack Slocum's Ext UI framework will work in the same way. It is built using YUI or jQuery as the base. So, domino developers can do the same and have apps that use either or all of the frameworks.
Here's a good article about namespaces:
{Link}
Eli Harris (Fri 23 Feb 2007 12:55 PM) website / e-mail
That makes perfect sense. We will use our own namespace so as not to have collisions.
I am definitely going to be using as many pieces as possible from all sources and this will make it easy to integrate them into my version.
Eli Harris (Sun 25 Feb 2007 02:40 PM) website / e-mail
Jake,
You have done a sweet implementation of Ext 1.0....
Cristian D'Aloisio (Mon 12 Mar 2007 06:02 AM)
Hi.
I think that writing a framework for Domino web development is a wonderful idea (Dext by Jake and DWT by Jack), athough that SHOULD be available from Lotus itself :-(
I develop web applications on Domino platform since R4.6 (I had a Perl background), and every time it is a time consuming work, it's like "painting a new picture every time".
I made some simple web tools, but now I think it's time for a nice dev framework that cut off web dev times (no reinventing the wheel, new web 2.0 techniques, etc) .
Do you know if there is also any commercial web dev framework for Lotus Domino (waiting for your free frameworks as yours) ?
Thanks again,
Patrick Kwinten (Mon 17 Dec 2007 02:14 PM) website / e-mail
is there an update of the database with the Ext JS 2.o Framework to be expected ??
Jake Howlett (Tue 18 Dec 2007 03:47 AM)
Who knows Patrick!? Maybe one day.
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