Preface

Ext JS is a leading JavaScript framework that comes with a wealth of components, APIs, and extensive documentation that you can harness to build powerful and interactive desktop applications. By using Ext JS, you also quickly develop rich desktop web applications that are compatible with all major browsers. This book will take you step-by-step through building a clear and user-friendly sales database in Ext JS using information from an existing database.

Rather than just explaining MVC, this book is a hands-on, practical guide that will take you through the mechanics of building an application. By the end of the book you will have a working application that is ready to customize. You can also use the architecture from this book in future projects to simplify controls, improve maintenance, and expand applications with ease.

You should be able to grasp the idea of the example data structure introduced in this book. This book has been written on the premise that you are familiar with JavaScript and have basic operational knowledge of MySQL.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Data Structure, focuses on preparing the basic foundations of your database. It will deal with an existing virtual company's data structure and the making of SQL and tables in MySQL.

Chapter 2, Planning Application Design, develops the environment of the project, while at the same time introducing Sencha Cmd. You will learn to design a simple application and optimize Ajax requests in order to use Ext Direct and Ext.util.History to control the screen with a URL.

Chapter 3, Data Input, discusses making a form to input data, then transmit that data to a server via Ext Direct. You will also learn to monitor the state of the input and how Ext Direct will validate it on the server side.

Chapter 4, List and Search, speaks mainly about displaying data that we read in Chapter 3, Data Input. However, users will no doubt want to search the data, so this chapter will also introduce data searches.

Chapter 5, Reporting, focuses on the implementation of the report displaying it with four different types of graphs on the dashboard.

Chapter 6, Data Management, focuses on the implementation of data import/export, done to restore or to keep a backup of the data.

What you need for this book

For using this book, you will need to be familiar with JavaScript and have a basic operational knowledge of MySQL.

Before you start reading, you need to have the following setup in your system:

• The most recent version of Sencha Ext JS with GPL. You can download this from the Sencha website available at http://www.sencha.com/products/extjs/download/. This book was made based on Ext JS Version 4.2.2.

• Any good code editor.

• A web browser, any modern web browser is okay. In this book we are using Google Chrome, so we suggest that you use Google Chrome as well, if possible.

Who this book is for

This is a tutorial for intermediates in Sencha Ext JS that explains the process of building a UI that deals with an existing database.

This book is for anyone who wants to be able to systematically learn how to construct an application from the first step of implementation.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "The Bill table is almost the same as the Quotation table."

A block of code is set as follows:

UPDATE
    users
SET
    email='[e-mail]',
    passwd=SHA1(MD5('password')),
    lastname='Kotsutsumi',
    firstname='Kazuhiro',
    modified=NOW()
WHERE
    id=1

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

# The name of the package containing the theme scss for the app
app.theme=ext-theme-classic
↓
# The name of the package containing the theme scss for the app
app.theme=ext-theme-neptune

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "By doing this, you can keep deleting just by continuing to click on the Delete button."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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