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As I announced before, I’ve got a promo version of a book Ext JS 3.0 Cookbook from PacktPub. I finally got it, as a very nice Christmas present, and I can tell you that it is what it’s name says, a cookbook.
About The Author Top
Author of this book is Jorge Ramon, received his Electronics Engineering Degree from the Jose A. Echevarría Polytechnics Superior Institute in Havana, Cuba in 1993. He has over 16 years of experience as a software developer and has also created applications, search, e-commerce software, engines and automatic-control software. His very strong knowledge of different got him title of Vice President of Development in Taladro Systems LLC where he works doday. There he made significant contributions to the creation of LawDRILL™ and QwikTime™, also products from Taladry Systems LLC. Also, he actively contributes to the software development community through his blog, miamicoder.com.
About The Publisher Top
Publisher of this book is Packt Publishing Ltd. They published their first book in April 2004, Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management, and since then they published about 360 books about web technologies and development of web applications. They have books covering most of web technologies and software like PHP, MySQL, Zend Framework, jQuery, JavaScript, Drupal, Joomla and others.
Ext JS 3.0 Cookbook Top
Ext JS Cookbook
So, what’s this book all about you may ask. This book was written with hope that it will bring you closer Ext JS framework that is really powerful and has cool features. This book will not tell you how to get started with Ext JS or explain datatypes, variables and syntax (although it says something about that) since it’s not it’s main point of interest. You’ll also get all source codes used in this book so it’s easier for you to follow. (I suggest you write them by your self because you’ll get more familiar with framework).
Who Is This Book For Top
Author himself says that this book is for those who want to learn useful techniques on working with Ext JS with explanations and those who already have experience in that technology. I would extend that a little bit and would say that it’s not just for those who have experience in Ext JS, but for all those who have experience in Javascript. If you know jQuery, it’s a big plus because they work almost the same way. I’ve never before worked with Ext JS, but since I’ve experience in Javascript and jQuery, it was not hard for me to understand how it works because it’s just a framework, not new programming language.
What Will This Book Teach You Top
I would not say teach you so it means “This is how you do it”, but in a way that it will give you some kind of a template that you can modify to get what you want. This book has recipes on how to do something, but each one of them can be extended or merged with any other. You’ll see how certain component are combined to get something new. When you’ll be reading this book, just remember that the way author did it is not the only way how it could be done. I think author wanted to say the same thing.
About Chapters Top
It has 10 chapters and each one of them has about 10-11 recipes. They start with elementary stuff like modifying DOM, detecting browser, converting variable types and working with string. Then you’ll have a chance to work with user interface, forms, and grids. After that you’ll learn how to combine what you’ve learned and create editable grids, tabs, menus and charts. At the end you’ll be introduced to design patterns used in Ext JS.
How It’s Written Top
To better understand following images, this is convention they used.
Conventions
It’s written using template similar to this.
Template
You’ll find images that show you what you are trying to create and if recipe includes some kind of flow you’ll see images connected with arrows so you can see how changes are happening. You’ll also find arrow pointing to interesting areas on image.
 Layout 1 |
 Layout 2 |
 Arrows pointing to interesting area |
You may find it confusing later when you have 4-5 pages of code and after that it’s explanation in 15-20 rows of text, but don’t be. It’s short explanation because some component used in there was explained in some other recipe. That’s why you have to read See also… section, where you’ll find references tho those components that where not explained to good.
In There’s more… section, you’ll find tips on how to do it in a different way or how to combine it with other components.
 There's more part 1 |
 There's more part 2 |
You may find Getting ready… section that will tell you what are dependencies and where to find them so you can follow recipe.
 Getting ready 1 |
 Getting ready 2 |
Favorite Chapter Top
My favorite chapter is Chapter 8 – Making Progress With Menus and Toolbars. Why? Because menus and toolbars are something hard to do using CSS and XHTML and Ext JS has a simple way of doing is by defining some CSS and creating toolbar using Ext.Toolbar.
Toolbar
There is also shown how to do drop down menus and it shows what I’ve been talking about on how you can combine components to get something new. Here it’s shown how to combine color picker, date picker, menu and toolbar to create a good looking menu where you can pick color or date.
 Date picker |
 Color picker |
Conclusion Top
Well, there is nothing more I can tell you about this book. I liked it a lot and started to consider using Ext JS as my primary Javascript framework and not jQuery and will learn more about Ext JS. I may buy an other book. If you want to use Ext JS in your projects and you need some kind of cheat sheet or you just want to learn Ext JS this is what you need. It’s written in a way that it’s easy to follow and if you have experience in Javascript but not in Ext JS (like myself) you’ll still be able to catch everything.
About A Reviewer Top
My name is Marijan Šuflaj and I’m a student on Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) in Zagreb, Croatia. I finished elementary school in Ivanska (where I currenty live) and high school in Bjelovar.
I am Marijan Šuflaj and I am 18 years old. I am student on FER (1st year). I programm in PHP for a long time but I am also learning other programming languages. This blog was made because I want to help PHP comunity by writing tutorials and publishing my PHP scripts so you can use them in your projects. Feel free to contact me and you can also ask my help if you think I can help you.
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No problem, it was a pleasure to read it. Nicely done
.
Marijan,
Thank you for putting together this review of the Ext JS 3.0 Cookbook.
Best regards,
Jorge.