alucard001
18 Mar 2009, 8:04 PM
Hi all.
First of all, sorry for my bad attitude on the coming message, but I am really really frustrated and disappointed with both learning ExtJS & using the documentation.
I am a PHP programer and usually use jQuery for my web project. I am a newbie in ExtJS and know little about this. Recently my job required me to use ExtJS as standard of JS library to do some drag & drop thing.
I therefore want to quickly pick up this and immediately dive into ExtJS documentation, forum and the book - Learning ExtJS (Talking about Ext 2.x). However...I found that ExtJS is VERY VERY HARD TO UNDERSTAND, especially the documentation and lack of examples.
Yes, I know that there is an example sections and I indeed read that, poor me I cannot understand that and often when I finished reading a "Tutorial", I ask myself "So what? How can this help to solve my problem???"
For example, my frustration start something like this: I read "Learning ExtJS" Drag & Drop section. At the first part talking about "Drop data", I came across with such function, indeed, I think this is a very basic function:
// dropNodeData-drop node data object
// source-drag zone which contained the dragged element
// event-the drag drop event
// dragNodeData-drag source data object
// this-destination drop zone
function drop(dropNodeData, source, event, dragNodeData) {
var dragged = source.dragData.ddel;
var sourceContainer = source.el.dom;
var destinationContainer = this.getEl();
sourceContainer.removeChild(dragged);
destinationContainer.appendChild(dragged);
return true;
}
"source" is dragsource object, I know that, but what is source.dragData.ddel????? I therefore go to Ext2.2.1 immediately to find what is inside dragsource object (Ext.dd.DragSource), guess what? THERE IS NOTHING CALLED "dragData"! Instead I got a function called getDragData(). Again, "So what? does it return an object which will contain ddel?"
How about "ddel"? My "Guess" is that it stands for "DragDropElement". Ok, I typed: ddel in doc, guess again? NOTHING SHOW!
Ok, so who can tell me WHY the "source" can acess "dragData.ddel;" ??? I can tell you that I also cannot find anything about that in parent class.
Let me give you the answer. I can find the dragdata.ddel inside a .js file, this is inside a comment. But the whole point is, how can you expect someone to dig into the source code and find what he/she wants? If everyone needs to read the source code, who need documentation?
By the way, the source code of Ext.dd.DragSource is NOT AVAILABLE.
http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/src/DragSource.js
And there are many other similar situation (I want to find something, but it does not appear in documentation).
Actually, I really want to request that, each & every methods/properties in documentation should have a short example on how to use it, just like PHP or jQuery. Although jQuery is not the best, but at least, I can understand:
- what will be available to a function called (Don't let me guess what is 'e', 't', even though I know that 'e' is for 'eventObject', don't assume that we know)
- what CAN BE returned
- the expected result
And of course, show me what this method can do for us!
I think, programmer just wants to know, what can be put inside, what can be expected, and if we 'copy and paste' this code to test, it JUST WORKS!
Again, sorry for my very bad attitudes towards both the community and ExtJS team, I just want ExtJS developer to know that, many many many times I feel extremely frustrated and unclear when I cannot find any method/properties in your documentation, which I expect it should.
First of all, sorry for my bad attitude on the coming message, but I am really really frustrated and disappointed with both learning ExtJS & using the documentation.
I am a PHP programer and usually use jQuery for my web project. I am a newbie in ExtJS and know little about this. Recently my job required me to use ExtJS as standard of JS library to do some drag & drop thing.
I therefore want to quickly pick up this and immediately dive into ExtJS documentation, forum and the book - Learning ExtJS (Talking about Ext 2.x). However...I found that ExtJS is VERY VERY HARD TO UNDERSTAND, especially the documentation and lack of examples.
Yes, I know that there is an example sections and I indeed read that, poor me I cannot understand that and often when I finished reading a "Tutorial", I ask myself "So what? How can this help to solve my problem???"
For example, my frustration start something like this: I read "Learning ExtJS" Drag & Drop section. At the first part talking about "Drop data", I came across with such function, indeed, I think this is a very basic function:
// dropNodeData-drop node data object
// source-drag zone which contained the dragged element
// event-the drag drop event
// dragNodeData-drag source data object
// this-destination drop zone
function drop(dropNodeData, source, event, dragNodeData) {
var dragged = source.dragData.ddel;
var sourceContainer = source.el.dom;
var destinationContainer = this.getEl();
sourceContainer.removeChild(dragged);
destinationContainer.appendChild(dragged);
return true;
}
"source" is dragsource object, I know that, but what is source.dragData.ddel????? I therefore go to Ext2.2.1 immediately to find what is inside dragsource object (Ext.dd.DragSource), guess what? THERE IS NOTHING CALLED "dragData"! Instead I got a function called getDragData(). Again, "So what? does it return an object which will contain ddel?"
How about "ddel"? My "Guess" is that it stands for "DragDropElement". Ok, I typed: ddel in doc, guess again? NOTHING SHOW!
Ok, so who can tell me WHY the "source" can acess "dragData.ddel;" ??? I can tell you that I also cannot find anything about that in parent class.
Let me give you the answer. I can find the dragdata.ddel inside a .js file, this is inside a comment. But the whole point is, how can you expect someone to dig into the source code and find what he/she wants? If everyone needs to read the source code, who need documentation?
By the way, the source code of Ext.dd.DragSource is NOT AVAILABLE.
http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/src/DragSource.js
And there are many other similar situation (I want to find something, but it does not appear in documentation).
Actually, I really want to request that, each & every methods/properties in documentation should have a short example on how to use it, just like PHP or jQuery. Although jQuery is not the best, but at least, I can understand:
- what will be available to a function called (Don't let me guess what is 'e', 't', even though I know that 'e' is for 'eventObject', don't assume that we know)
- what CAN BE returned
- the expected result
And of course, show me what this method can do for us!
I think, programmer just wants to know, what can be put inside, what can be expected, and if we 'copy and paste' this code to test, it JUST WORKS!
Again, sorry for my very bad attitudes towards both the community and ExtJS team, I just want ExtJS developer to know that, many many many times I feel extremely frustrated and unclear when I cannot find any method/properties in your documentation, which I expect it should.