Using ExtGWT and ExtJS together

[dsartory]

Hi everyone -
I appreciate any advice on this topic and apologize in advance for my lack of clear understanding... I have an app built in Vaadin (GWT) and am debating switching to Ext. Can I use ExtGWT when I convert my existing app, then use ExtJS for all other development and take advantage of the relationship by leveraging any commonality? Or does using ExtGWT and ExtJS leave me in the same boat as using Vaadin and ExtJS eg: no real connection at all?

Hope that made sense...

Thank you so much!
Dave

[Ekambos]

I dont understand. You want to use ExtJS and GXT in the same app ? If yes ? Why s that ? Why mix them ?

[dsartory]

Hey Ekambos-
The requirements are internal. We are not mixing by choice... we're trying to salvage substantial work that was done in another GWT based framework and were hoping that by using ExtJS and ExtGWT we could leverage the similarities better. The short version is, can ExtJS and ExtGWT interact in any way BETTER than ExtJS and any other GWT based framework?

[Colin Alworth]

In short, no, because while Ext GWT code is compiled to Javascript, that code will bear little resemblence to hand written Javascript like Ext JS.

If you have existing GWT code, you may find it easier to combine that with Ext GWT, as both are written with Java, using GWT. If you try to mix Ext JS and regular GWT (or Ext GWT) you will probably find lots of places you need to write JSNI methods to correctly talk back and forth.

The similarities are mostly in style, but good coding practice and event wiring for hand written JS tend to be different than for GWT code.

[sven]

The short version is, can ExtJS and ExtGWT interact in any way BETTER than ExtJS and any other GWT based framework?
You cannot use them on the same page currently. Only ExtJS4 in the sandbox version will work. The problem is the CSS. Although the stylenames are the same, some styling is different and would end in bad behaviours. You would need to fix this first or use the ExtJS4 sandbox version.

[Ekambos]

@Colin
Well it is actually possible to mix ExtJS and GWT(GXT). And that in a way that s really transparent to the user. We did this by wrapping ExtJS with GWT. We started this for small projects and we now almost have the entire ExtJS 3 and 4 API exported to GWT. We might open source it sometime in the future. We were not just sure if this is a common practice. It looks like yeah :) Here is a demo :
http://gwt4extjs4.appspot.com/ . Check the combination example to see a GWT widget inside a ExtJS Panel.

[dsartory]

Hi Colin- How intensive a project would "fixing" the CSS be? Is this a reasonable task or a massive effort? I appreciate the advice!

Dave

[Colin Alworth]

As Sven mentioned, if using Ext JS 4's 'sandbox' css feature, it shouldn't be an issue at all.