Ext Scheduler - Scheduling/Planning/Gantt component

[mankz]

Ever needed a way to schedule projects/tasks/meetings/rooms/staff? Check out this new component, the Ext Scheduler (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnIlF_Xjfp0).

29266

Live Examples: http://bryntum.com/examples.html

Current status:

Homepage: http://www.bryntum.com
Live Examples (http://www.bryntum.com/examples)
Requirements : Ext JS 4 or Ext JS3 (could be adapted to 2.x without some features)
Feedback/bugs forum (http://bryntum.com/forum)
Documentation (http://www.bryntum.com/docs/)
GWT Ext (GXT) component: Forum thread here (http://www.extjs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89196), release March 2010
IE6 Support: Hrmmm


To receive information and updates, either


Send me an email at mats@bryntum.com (mailto://mats@bryntum.com).
Join the Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ext-Scheduler/150795261988?created)
Follow me on twitter (http://twitter.com/bryntum)


Time for coffee, enjoy! ~o)

[MaximGB]

Just WOW =D>

[joeri]

Nice...

I am in the design phase of just such a component. It would be for a port of reservation system from windows to web, where users can interact with the calendar to book or change reservations. I was planning on implementing this as a grid column, so that I got the row support, grouping, sorting and so on for free, and have already built a proof of concept.

Now that I see this, I may have to rethink things, because it might make more sense to buy this component and base our work off of it.

Some questions:

- You don't seem to have used a grid as your basis. What sort of support is there for extra columns (with sorting), and letting the user quickly enable/disable grouping in different data elements?

- We would need to support both confirmed reservations (may not overlap) as tentative reservations (may overlap). Is it difficult to integrate support for these two kinds of objects in the same scheduler? Eventually we also want to use the component as a basis for our tasks/appointments planner port from windows to web, where both types may overlap with the other type, but not with themselves, and where they need to have different heights (one hiding below the other) so you can interact with them both.

- What sort of support is there for integrating business rules of where calendar items can be moved? For example, we have per-resource non-available time, which can differ from day-to-day. This would need to be marked invalid in the calendar and behave that way when you try to drop an item on it. We also have preparation and cleanup time around reservations, which prevents an item from neatly matching up to the next reservation. And then there are things like minimal time ahead, which prevents you from booking a resource too close to the time of the booking (so service providers have time to set up the reservation's requirements, such as food and cleaning services).

- Could you go into a little bit more detail of how the data backing for this component is done? I am curious how well it scales and copes with on-demand loading scenarios of large data sets (say, a 100 resources, each in week view). Can data be cached client-side? Is it possible to reuse the same data store for more than one scheduler?

- We have resource bundling. A room might already contain some equipment, and might be made up of partitions which can be reserved separately. When this is then booked, this must be indicated as a group in the calendar, and when moving those items this also has to occur as a group. Is something like this feasible to integrate?

Phew, a lot of questions there. Not all of that stuff is necessary, we might end up shipping only a subset of what the windows app does, but that's what I'm up against for converting to the web, and it's not a simple task, so if your component offers a shortcut, I'll gladly take it.

[mankz]

To sum up: My goal with the scheduler is not to cover every imaginable business scenario since each business has very different business logic. My goal is to provide an extensible tool where you can easily customize the scheduler to your needs.

I can answer the scaling part right away, if you throw 100 resources in the scheduler it won't be nice (haven't tried it, just a qualified guess :) ). It will support paging though, so if that is acceptable then you're good. Putting a 100 records in a standard grid without paging is just as bad, same concept in my component...

I'll give you more detailed answer when my brain starts working again. Been a long night :)

[joeri]

I was not intending to imply that I expect all of that as standard behavior. I guess what I need to know is exactly how extensible this component would be, because that's going to be the deciding factor in whether to use it as a base platform or not.

Regardless, it looks like an impressive component.

Rest up! :)

[Fredric Berling]

This is just what ive been looking for Mats..and you know it :) .. Considering ive actually seen some of the code behind this project (Ext JS Meetup Sweden) , i can guarantee this is some serious piece of component (also coding wise). Kudos for the demo you gave us. Impressive.

[emilschutte]

This looks great!

[mankz]

Got some sleep now hehe!



- You don't seem to have used a grid as your basis. What sort of support is there for extra columns (with sorting), and letting the user quickly enable/disable grouping in different data elements?

It's based on a gridpanel, so you'll be able to use all standard grid behaviour.



- We would need to support both confirmed reservations (may not overlap) as tentative reservations (may overlap). Is it difficult to integrate support for these two kinds of objects in the same scheduler? Eventually we also want to use the component as a basis for our tasks/appointments planner port from windows to web, where both types may overlap with the other type, but not with themselves, and where they need to have different heights (one hiding below the other) so you can interact with them both.

This won't be a problem, you can plug any validating logic into the scheduler.




- What sort of support is there for integrating business rules of where calendar items can be moved? For example, we have per-resource non-available time, which can differ from day-to-day. This would need to be marked invalid in the calendar and behave that way when you try to drop an item on it. We also have preparation and cleanup time around reservations, which prevents an item from neatly matching up to the next reservation. And then there are things like minimal time ahead, which prevents you from booking a resource too close to the time of the booking (so service providers have time to set up the reservation's requirements, such as food and cleaning services).


Same answer here, you can easily plug any validating logic into the scheduler. Non-availability time could be solved by either you supplying this data as regular events and just style them differently. This could be either done on the server if it's complex or you could inject your nonavailibility hours on the client too.



- Could you go into a little bit more detail of how the data backing for this component is done? I am curious how well it scales and copes with on-demand loading scenarios of large data sets (say, a 100 resources, each in week view). Can data be cached client-side? Is it possible to reuse the same data store for more than one scheduler?

I'm currently working on a more indepth webcast which explains the whole setup with data loading etc. Reusing data in other schedulers should be fine.



- We have resource bundling. A room might already contain some equipment, and might be made up of partitions which can be reserved separately. When this is then booked, this must be indicated as a group in the calendar, and when moving those items this also has to occur as a group. Is something like this feasible to integrate?

Could you post a screen shot of how you would like it to look? Sounds a little tricky but still doable.

Hope my answers are of use to you. If not I'll gladly answer any further questions! :)

[joeri]

This is sounding better and better. :)

Thinking about it, I suppose the resource bundling won't be an issue to implement. Acceptable behavior for us would be that if you select one resource, the related resources are also selected, and when you then move those resources, they are moved as a group (only horizontally ofcourse). That's the behavior we currently have in our windows scheduler component, and people find that acceptable. We're also going to need cut/paste logic to move groups of selected resources to different weeks/months, but again I think that will be easy to implement.

I'm still in the prototyping phase, I expect to be moving to full spec writing during november, so the timing matches up. I guess final decisions will be made when I see the code and the pricing model you propose.

I must say, this is really exciting and disappointing at the same time. Exciting because it means I can build something much nicer in far less time, and disappointing because this seemed like a fun challenge to set my teeth into. :)

[Lobos]

Kudos mate! That is freakin awesome!

[dbassett74]

Very nice! When can we get our hands on it?

[mankz]

Very soon actually! Finishing it up and doing documentation etc...

[mankz]

2nd webcast is up:

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/img/video1.png (http://www.youtube.com/v/5XlW02ctPwY)

Feedback welcome...

@joeri: Does that address your concern of plugging in custom logic to the scheduler?

[jay@moduscreate.com]

That's pretty awesome dude. When you ahve time, i'd like to see if i can pretty up the drag and drop implementation, if you're looking for code submissions :)

[mankz]

:)

What would you like to change about the drag n drop?

[moegal]

Really looks great. Is this 3+ or will it work on ext2?

Thanks, Marty

[Brendan Carroll]

Yowza! Looking great. Will watch his Cmp for sure.

[mankz]

@Marty: It's built on Ext 3.0 yes. Don't think I'll have time to support 2 versions of Ext. I'll definitely consider it if someone wants to pay me to do it. Should be fairly easy since I'm not using any fancy Ext 3 features really... Let me know if you're interested in this :)

Cheers

/Mats

[jay@moduscreate.com]

:)

What would you like to change about the drag n drop?

i would not use the status proxy :)


this is kick ass though dude.

[mankz]

Without the status proxy, how would indicate to the user if a drop is valid or invalid?

[jay@moduscreate.com]

That would require something like a "drop position indicator". Examples: http://tdg-i.com/img/screencasts/2009-10-18_0743.swf

That said, I am gong to retract my statement before. In the interest of *not* over complicating your work, I say forget what i said. :)

[mankz]

Alright, I like suggestions/feedback though so if you have more just fire away :)

[jay@moduscreate.com]

I'd like to get my hands on it and build something functional. Eventually, do a nice blog post or screen cast on it.

[dlbjr]

I can't wait to try it out. Great creation mankz!

[alindsay55661]

This is so nice, when do you expect to release it? What licensing options are you contemplating?

[mankz]

@alindsay55661: Haven't decided 100% on the licensing yet but I'm leaning towards GPL+Commercial, same as ExtJS basically.

Here's a new webcast showing how you can turn the scheduler into a simple gantt chart.

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/4hfMvvhPfZ4/default.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hfMvvhPfZ4)

[MiamiCoder]

This looks great! Thank you.

[mike.slattery]

This is a very exciting ux, I can't wait to try it out... Cheers!

[seg]

Looks very good, can't wait to try it out! This is the only component which is missing and therefore we still need a windows client for scheduling, if this component is as good as it looks, we can say goodbye to the windows client... :)

[georgiosleon]

I can use it, when is it available ?

[mankz]

@georgiosleon: Next week I'll be ready to let go of the beta version I got, if all goes as planned. Meanwhile here are 2 examples to try out, I'm sure there are a bug here and there so don't hold your fire :)

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples.html

[joeri]

This looks so kick-ass. I love the different views, and the speed of interaction. The mini-rendering in the collapsed group header is something I haven't seen anywhere else, and a really good idea.

I showed the advanced example to the guy that wrote our Delphi scheduler component (which is generally regarded as one of the best pieces of our software), and his only response was "wow".

[mankz]

Glad you like it, the collapsed group header is kinda sweet. The cool thing about it is that you can actually still interact with the items even when they're in the collapsed group header. Not sure if that's useful though :)

[joeri]

Ha! I hadn't even noticed that. Cute. I agree that it's not very useful, but it's definitely cute.

[aw1zard2]

Very nice work on this.

Would love to test out the beta if any spots open.

:)

[ajaxvador]

price ?

[sourcegarden]

i beggin you for release that cool stuff. i just looking forward to use it and to develop with it. it looks like one of the most important extensions to the extjs-lib 2009/10. I just can imagine what would be possible.

do you have an email-list, where you inform people about the dev-status, beta etc.?
plus put me on this list, i do not want to miss a thing ;-)

great work, go on ;-)

greetz
mario

[bkraut]

Respect!

I also found another javascript Gantt projects:
http://www.sfgantt.com/sfgantt/
http://www.treegrid.com/treegrid/www/#..*Examples*Html*Gantt*GanttSimple.html

[sourcegarden]

I think it's not a Gantt-Chart. Scheduler is different. :-)
The Approach is another, i guess.

greetz
mario

[mankz]

Back again, been very busy so sorry for not replying more often... There will be more details shortly in my blog (http://mankzblog.wordpress.com/). I just created a new webcast too which shows the scheduler in a wave, opening interesting possibilities for realtime collaborative online scheduling & project management for example.

What's new?

http://www.ext-scheduler.com is up
Documentation (http://www.ext-scheduler.com/documentation.html) - 25% done
New webcast "Feature tour and Wave integration" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b87M2TOyDEY)
License (http://www.ext-scheduler.com/license.html)
Feedback/idea forum (http://scheduler.uservoice.com/) (powered by UserVoice)


Coming soon:

Roadmap
GWT-Ext component
Support for multiple level headers
Advanced styling demo & webcast
Ext. 2.x sample implementation


http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/b87M2TOyDEY/default.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b87M2TOyDEY)

I'm hoping to be able to wrap up the code for v1.0 during next week, I want to do some more testing first.

Enjoy!

[Yoris]

I took a look at the so called license, if its not free in any way...wouldnt this post be spam or "propaganda"...
please dont misunderstand me, i dont mind to disrespect you or the forum,
my english is kinda rough around the edges and i dont like intricate legal stuff..

Yoris

[bkraut]

I think it's not a Gantt-Chart. Scheduler is different. :-)
The Approach is another, i guess.

greetz
mario

Thats true, but the functionality of the component can be used in several ways. So with minor modifications it could render Gantt.

[jburnhams]

I took a look at the so called license, if its not free in any way...wouldnt this post be spam or "propaganda"...
Why is it a 'so called license'? Do you have reason to doubt its validity?

This forum is for examples of how people use Ext (hence the title). The scheduler is an excellent example of how Ext can used - I'm glad I've had a chance to see it.

[sourcegarden]

BETA BETA BETA BETA, -...... please.
our team is really looking forward the beta.
I think you are just about finishing the last steps, right?

greetz from germany
mario

[mankz]

Update:

• Horizontal scrolling support (column locking)
• Multiple row headers support
• Year column resolution
• Bug fixes
• New example: eBay API (http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/ebay/ebay.html)

I’ve also setup a Wave thread for discussion, it’s a bit more powerful than the vBulletin forum. https://wave.google.com/wave/#restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252BoADgEOJYB I would really like to hear your thoughts so far and ideas for future features (and any bugs you have found). If you don’t have a Wave account, I have plenty of invites so just send me an email and I’ll invite you.

Cheers ~o)

[mankz]

The scheduler is now ready for release, and almost out of beta status. Just added a new example where the data is pulled from some different Google Calendars.

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/images/Untitled.png (http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples.html)

Any feedback is very much appreciated, don't hold your fire :)

[mankz]

Just did a blog post on some new stuff happening, read more here:

http://mankzblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/ext-scheduler-update/

http://mankzblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/untitled1.png

[mankz]

New example:

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/local/local.html

New webcast:

http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/EuDeBdOU1sw/default.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuDeBdOU1sw)

[mankz]

Example updated, now includes machine utilization levels using the charting lib.

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/local/untitled.png (http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/local/local.html)

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/local/local.html

[mankz]

Also checkout our new Ext Gantt chart component about to be released:

http://www.extjs.com/forum/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=88699

http://ext-scheduler.com/img/ganttlarge.jpg

[mankz]

Here's a very well written introductory review on the Scheduler, by Jorge Ramon (miamicoder).

http://www.miamicoder.com/post/2009/12/30/Using-the-Ext-Scheduler-Part1.aspx

[Roddarn]

Hi.

The first version of GXT version of the scheduler is comming soon!!!

So for all you GXT fans, check out this webcast to get first look...

http://carolineochrasmus.se/sc1.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS3djc5cEbI)


To receive information and updates, either

Send me an email at rasmus@ext-scheduler.com
Visit our website Ext-Scehduler (http://www.ext-scheduler.com)


Bye

[davidli]

Our team is really looking forward the beta.

[Roddarn]

Hi all. Here is a new video showing the flexibility of the E/Gxt-Scheduler.

I hope you like it.

http://carolineochrasmus.se/screen2.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2VQbbL1Oqo&feature=channel)

Bye for now.

[mankz]

New live example - "Turning the scheduler into a simple Gantt chart" (http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/simplegantt/simplegantt.html)

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/img/simpleganttdemothumb.png (http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/simplegantt/simplegantt.html)

Any thoughts or feedback appreciated :)

[mankz]

YASE - Yet Another Scheduler Example: This one shows you how to edit the meta data associated with a scheduled event.

http://ext-scheduler.com/examples/eventeditor/editor.html

[realjax]

Your license page is a bit confusing. To me that is. :-)
It looks like as if payment is only needed for phone support ($ 980) which is the same for each type of license..
So if I do not want phone support, I'm all set and can use it on a million apps and servers ?

Surely this can't be correct. Why are there no actual license fees posted?

[mankz]

Sorry for the confusion, we're currently in the process of putting this information up on the webpage. In the mean time you're very welcome to contact us for a quote.

sales@ext-scheduler.com (mailto://sales@ext-scheduler.com)

[realjax]

Hi Mats,

Well, to be honest I always shy away from products where I need to inquire first about the actual cost. To me this sounds like as if:

- the license fees are so high that they would scare away potential buyers immediately .
- license fees are variable. I might pay a different (higher) fee then another customer who's the better negotiater.
- license fees are subject to change depending on how well the product sells.

Please understand, I'm not saying that any of these reasons apply to your case, it is just how I (and maybe more potential customers) feel..

cheers.

[emredagli]

Hii,
In this example (http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/eventeditor/editor.html) (eventeditor) when i try to drag the timeline borders become rough.
I have test it in "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20091221 Firefox/3.5.7 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)"

By the way, this application is elegant and wonderfull.
Thanks.

[mankz]

@emredagli: I've seen that too. It is a FF bug, only happens with rounded corners + overflow:hidden.
Here's the bugzilla report:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=526463

I've modified the CSS on the examples now, try again and see if you can reproduce it..?

[mnask79]

Thanks for your interest in the Ext Scheduler! Below is a link to a trial kit which contains several sample implementations to get you up to speed in no time. This trial kit will work for 60 days. If you need more time to prototype just send us an email to receive a new trial kit. It would be great to hear your feedback on the examples and if you find any bugs please let me know. The source of the scheduler itself is scrambled but will of course be provided in full with documentation if you purchase it.


this module is not open source ?? trial for 60 days ?

[mankz]

@mnask79: No it is not open source, it's a commercial product. After the 60 day trial period you will be required to purchase a license to use it. Send me a PM if you have further questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

[mankz]

Hi Mats,

Well, to be honest I always shy away from products where I need to inquire first about the actual cost. To me this sounds like as if:

- the license fees are so high that they would scare away potential buyers immediately .
- license fees are variable. I might pay a different (higher) fee then another customer who's the better negotiater.
- license fees are subject to change depending on how well the product sells.

Please understand, I'm not saying that any of these reasons apply to your case, it is just how I (and maybe more potential customers) feel..

cheers.

@realjax: I understand your concerns and we're currently in the process of standardizing the pricing model. Up til now, each customer has required different customizations making it hard to settle on one fixed price - hence the lack of a standard pricing model. We have now settled on feature set that seems to satisfy most client scenarios and we'll be releasing a 1.5 version shortly. This version and the pricing schedule will be available on our site within a week.

If you have any further questions send me a PM.

[mask_hot]

Hi,

I'd like to know the work load to develop these components.


I understand you would want to be paid for your work but why not a double-licence like Ext?
It would be great for the community to have these kinds of components available :D

[mnask79]

i have asked people here in this forum about open source scheduling application http://www.extjs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=90503 , and they divert me to this component !!! .

and about me i want to use this component in my own application , not Commercial..
and i have sent email to sales man , i did not get any answer ??!! how i can know the price of this component ?!!

mankz ,thanks for answering us and for ur patience

Regards

[mankz]

@mnask79: Take it easy now, hang out for another week and you'll have the information you need. :)

[mankz]

Hi,

I'd like to know the work load to develop these components.


I understand you would want to be paid for your work but why not a double-licence like Ext?
It would be great for the community to have these kinds of components available :D


@mask_hot: The components are available, you just have to pay a license fee to use them (details on that are coming shortly). We might consider switching to dual license (like Ext) later this year but currently it doesn't make sense to us.

[alindsay55661]

Work load on this is significant, that is why nobody else has done it. If it were easy there would be several versions from other developers already, people have been asking for this widget for years. I am happy to pay for a product like this in order to get and keep it in development. If there were no commercial incentive then no scheduler would exist in the first place. Fortunately Mankz felt that it would be a good enough investment for him to develop it and earn some money. Lucky for us he did, now we have the best interactive scheduler on the market as an ext component. That is definitely worth money.

[mnask79]

@alindsay55661 ,we don't say the component is bad , its really great... ,anyway did u buy this component ? would u please tell us how mush ? and why its not like extjs license ? this is what we are asking

[jay@moduscreate.com]

@alindsay55661 ,we don't say the component is bad , its really great... ,anyway did u buy this component ? would u please tell us how mush ? and why its not like extjs license ? this is what we are asking

It's not like the Ext JS license because it was *not developed by Ext JS!*

[mnask79]

he is using extjs license ,can he develop his component without it ?? i would save my time and try to find another component with higher price ,at least everything will be clear .
i will not leave comment here any more

[alindsay55661]

@mnask79, Yes I did buy it and I love it. I bought a customized version tailored to my needs which also included custom pricing and some specific support provisions for my company. Our purchase, like the others made up till now I suppose, has no relationship to the standard product mankz looks to be releasing soon. As he said:


@realjax: I understand your concerns and we're currently in the process of standardizing the pricing model. Up til now, each customer has required different customizations making it hard to settle on one fixed price - hence the lack of a standard pricing model. We have now settled on feature set that seems to satisfy most client scenarios and we'll be releasing a 1.5 version shortly. This version and the pricing schedule will be available on our site within a week.

[flipthefrog]

We might consider switching to dual license (like Ext) later this year but currently it doesn't make sense to us.



More users using your component
More bugs detected
More activity on forums, tutorials written, different implementations, user contributions and suggestions
Less chance that someone else develops a free alternative because yours is already available
Commercial customers still have to pay
More good karma


Any of those make sense?

[mankz]

@alindsay55661: Thanks for your kind words, glad you find our product useful!

@flipthefrog: I think most of your points are very valid, but it would seem like I have to repeat myself: We will most likely switch to dual license (same as Ext) when we've stabilized what we have. Product hasn't been out on the market for more than a month, so there is absolutely no rush :)

[mankz]

Lots of people have asked for showing multiple "rows" for one resource, here's a new example showing one way of doing this using only CSS. Click on the image to try out the example yourself.

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/multiplerows.png (http://ext-scheduler.com/examples/multiplerows/multiplerows.html)

Let me know if there's any other type of example that you'd like to see on our website, enjoy :)

[mask_hot]

Work load on this is significant, that is why nobody else has done it. If it were easy there would be several versions from other developers already, people have been asking for this widget for years. I am happy to pay for a product like this in order to get and keep it in development. If there were no commercial incentive then no scheduler would exist in the first place. Fortunately Mankz felt that it would be a good enough investment for him to develop it and earn some money. Lucky for us he did, now we have the best interactive scheduler on the market as an ext component. That is definitely worth money.


I fully agree. If I asked for the work load it was just to have an idea of the massive work done because I have no idea about it. I surely did not want to disgrace th work done.


(I'm sorry if it's not really understandable but I don't want to use some Google translator to translate my french :-D )

[mankz]

New Ext Gantt screencast uploaded, click image to watch!

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/gantt.png (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxGaL4VVKjM)

More info in the forum thread http://www.extjs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88699

[mankz]

Ext Scheduler 1.5 beta is ready and packed with new functionality and a few bugfixes too. The example section has been updated with 4 fresh examples showing some of the newly added features. We think we have included the most requested features but still kept it as generic as possible. If you feel some features are still missing please let us know what they are. Here are some of the new features, more examples coming shortly:

* Left and right resize handles
* Slightly changed API hiding more of the basic implementation details, making it easier to use the scheduler.
* SummaryColumn plugin (in one of the new demos) for showing the total allocated time in the current view.
* Demo showing the Zones plugin as well as the Lines plugin
* Demo showing drag and drop from an external gridpanel

Let me know if you find any bugs, enjoy :)

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples.html

[joeri]

I like the responsiveness in the view switching, and also the lines and zones functionality. Powerful stuff.

[mankz]

Glad you like it :)

[mankz]

As part of the recent Ext Scheduler 1.5 release, pricing is now standardized and up on our site, along with PayPal integration.

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/store.html

[jheid]

As part of the recent Ext Scheduler 1.5 release, pricing is now standardized and up on our site, along with PayPal integration.

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/store.html

Hhm, IMO it's very expensive (649 US$ per application and developer). So, there will be many projects in which I won't be able to use it.
It's "just" a component for a price of a full product in my eyes (even a ExtJS license costs nearly half of it)... And when ExtJS 4.0 comes out (summer, autumn?) you will even have to pay 60% again... But it's your business.

Besides it's a very cool component.

[jay@moduscreate.com]

Hhm, IMO it's very expensive (649 US$ per application and developer). So, there will be many projects in which I won't be able to use it.
It's "just" a component for a price of a full product in my eyes (even a ExtJS license costs nearly half of it)... And when ExtJS 4.0 comes out (summer, autumn?) you will even have to pay 60% again... But it's your business.

Besides it's a very cool component.

Seems like a mini-application to me.

[mankz]

@jheid: If you look at what's out there with a similar feature set I don't think this is very expensive. The EJS treegrid for example (if you want source code) is 4.4k in the cheapest version.

And when Ext JS 4.0 comes out you don't have to pay anything. Major version in this case means major upgrades of the Scheduler, not Ext JS. So no hidden extra fees :)

[agfk]

Great component, but $649 for a single developer license?

You've got to be kidding me - that's more than Ext itself!

Make it $50 - even $100, then we'll talk :)

[mankz]

Just updated the EventEditor example to include editable resource columns using the new EditorSchedulerPanel in v.1.5. You can now both inline edit the leftmost columns as well as double click the scheduled events which opens the detail window.

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/eventeditor/editor.html

[mankz]

On a side note, the Ext Gantt is now in pre-beta and ready for testing:

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/ganttprebeta/gantt.html

Any feedback would be of great value! :)

[albeva]

It looks very promising and useful. However as others have said the price of this is a bit too much. You should in my opinion rethink that or have a more diverse pricing. Considering comparison with ExtJS itself I think ExtJS has far more value -on this simple comparison asking 2.2x the price for a single licence is a bit too outrageous. On top of that add the limitations, lack of long term support or even viable community support, not sure about documentation, frequency of updates and bug fixes...

It's your business and your choice, but there is a potential for more revenue with lower price points because more customers could afford it and would consider this.

For example I work for a medium size company (not web design) and have been pitching ExtJS to the managers and now building a demo project management application that they like a lot so far. In all likelihood we will get ExtJs licences for all our developers. That demo application I am building could really benefit from your component, but I will have a hard time justifying the pricing of this so you lost us as a potential customer. I am sure there are other similar lost opportunities.

[elnove]

Great component !
I guess it doesn't have RTL support, but how hard do you think it will be to add RTL support for your Scheduler.

[mankz]

@elnove: By RTL support, do you mean the text inside each event should be RTL? I'm not sure about the RTL support in the Ext GridPanel itself. If that's supported then it shouldn't be that much work to get it done.

[elnove]

I meant that the entire layout flow will be RTL, including text and elements (ie: instead of an 'li' element 'float:left' it will be 'float:right', etc').
I have css for some elements, including grid that are already RTLed.
Would that be enough, can you help with guild to your component CSS in case i want to to do that.
thanks

[mankz]

I've put RLT support on the roadmap for 2.0 now, thanks for the feedback :)

[steffenk]

Hi mankz,

i know you heard it often, anyway: Thanks for your great work and beautiful components. I love it! Keep on doing this great stuff!

[mankz]

Thanks mate :)

[commanche]

It looks really nice, but as someone stated before - it's massively overpriced. I need some of its functionallity as a base for further modifications, but $650 for a single developer and without actually knowing what I'm buying is too much and I would rather implement my own solution. Not to mention that there is no community, no reliable company behind the software and thus no guarantee about the support in the future.

[mankz]

@commanche: Thanks for your feedback! At this time our time is spent serving larger companies who get value out of our product and don't want to write it themselves. Since our potential customer base is very small, we can't really afford to lower our prices at this point. We do however have plans to create a simplified scheduler in Q2. Could you share which features you would require for your application?

If you just need a simple scheduling widget as the base for your application - I would have a look at JsGantt http://jsgantt.com/

or maybe the Fusion Chart alternative http://www.fusioncharts.com/widgets/gallery.asp#gantt2.

/Mats

[commanche]

@mankz: In my application I have complex scheduling, which probably cannot be implemented just by clicking and dragging over a calendar. But I need to visualize the scheduled tasks somehow. So I was thinking about a read-only calendar-like widget with day/week view loaded from the server.

I understand your situation and I hope you'll get more customers. It would be nice to have different "boxed" editions - Lite, Advenced, Professional and so on, with different features and of course different prices. The lower editions could be cheap or even free, while the rich-feature editions might be even more expensive than now. Good luck!

[jheid]

@commanche: Thanks for your feedback! At this time our time is spent serving larger companies who get value out of our product and don't want to write it themselves. Since our potential customer base is very small, we can't really afford to lower our prices at this point. ...

Oh, I think you're wrong here. I think that the application can be used widely for simple project management apps (even for private usage), a calendar view, some kind of time management and so on. I've had about six ideas of projects with it until your prices are revealed. So I really think that your customer base is small because of the price in the first place.

The Gantt scheduler is more complex and in fact it's very special and has a small user base so a higher price may be accurate but this high price even for simple visualization of some time bars

I think different products would be a good solution.

BTW, there's no collision detection, is there? So I can even put one bar exactly over the other so it cannot be seen anymore, right?

[mankz]

@jheid: There is no collision detection built in, in version 0.9 there was but I decided against it since I don't want to make any assumptions on how people are going to use it. Some may want the bookings to overlap in some cases - for example tentative bookings etc. To easily turn this on, I'm considering adding a boolean config 'preventOverlap', thoughts?

[jheid]

@jheid: There is no collision detection built in, in version 0.9 there was but I decided against it since I don't want to make any assumptions on how people are going to use it. Some may want the bookings to overlap in some cases - for example tentative bookings etc. To easily turn this on, I'm considering adding a boolean config 'preventOverlap', thoughts?

I don't know, if that's enough. I think it's a common situation where the start (or end) point is inside another event. Perhaps it would be possible to substract 2 pixel in height when another one is under a date or somethink like that? Just my thoughts as I haven't have a concrete project/problem with that.

[mankz]

That's definitely an option. Or if you know beforehand that you allow overlapping events you could use some CSS to visualize it, like this example: http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/multiplerows/multiplerows.html

All you'd have to do is just write the collision detection + a line of rendering logic. Should be pretty straightforward.

[seg]

Here a little story about a satisfied customer :);

by using this component we were finally able to bring our flagship product (win32/delphi) to the web using only html/css/javascript. When we started this project we decided to develop a web client using extjs and a delphi win32 client for our planning module, because at the time there wasn't a extjs based planning component available. As soon as Mats made his extjs scheduler component public we have trown away our win32 planning client and also build the planning module using extjs. Our planning module is pretty advanced, but most functions were easily ported, because of the flexibility of the component and with Mats great support.

I've included two screenshots.

regards,

Rob Segerink

[MiamiCoder]

@seg:

Looks great! Can you post larger images? :)

[mankz]

March update:

Pricing has been revised and the license has now been fully aligned with the Ext JS commercial license model to avoid any confusion. Visit our store (http://ext-scheduler.com/store.html) for more details. We also have 4 examples with screenshots showing what some of our customers built using the Scheduler. You can check out these screenshots here (http://ext-scheduler.com/testimonials.html). If you have something cool to show, we'd love to see it. Just send me a PM and include a screenshot or two.

Things to look forward to:

Touch adaption layer for iPhone to be able to interact with the Scheduler in the iPhone
Snap to time increment when resizing events
New plugins
Print support

[mankz]

I just posted a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_u1x22ivl0) showing some of the upcoming features of the Ext Scheduler. They are still being prototyped but I hope to be able to include them in a future release once they are stable.

Ext.ux.DateRangeSelector - Select date ranges easily:

http://ext-scheduler.com/slask/daterange.png

Sch.TreeScheduler - Tree functionality
http://ext-scheduler.com/slask/tree.png

Sch.plugins.ColumnDragSelector - Select time spans in the column header, useful when making mass bookings.
http://ext-scheduler.com/slask/col.png

[moegal]

WOW!

Marty

[steffenk]

Hi mansk,

this looks great. One thing also in the gantt example - you can drag events from one task to another, which isn't senseful in practise :)

[mankz]

...which is why the example is called "Simple Gantt Chart". :)

For a more powerful Gantt component, check out the Ext Gantt:

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/ganttprebeta/gantt.html

[abhaykulkarni16]

What about the performance?
I mean how many records can it hold and show their Gantts...?
I am looking for something which can hold 1000+ recs and still display WYSISG/Interactive Gantts...

[mankz]

Haven't done that much benchmarking yet, but it's definitely one of the top priorities in the near future. I can imagine it will be slow after adding 1000 rows, the GridPanel (which is the base for the Gantt/Scheduler) is a pretty heavy component with regards to the amount of HTML generated.

Feel free to try it out yourself, here's a snippet to give you some dummy data. Run it a couple of times in Firebug on the prebeta example page.

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/ganttprebeta/gantt.html


var g = Ext.getCmp('ext-comp-1013'), title = '',
s = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ',
group = s.charAt(Math.floor(Math.random()*26)),
order = g.store.getAt(g.store.getCount() - 1).get('Order') + 1;

for (var i = 0, l = taskEvents.length; i < l; i++) {
for(var j = 0; j < 4; j++){
title += s.charAt(Math.floor(Math.random()*26));
}
taskEvents[i].Id = title;
taskEvents[i].Title = title;
taskEvents[i].Group = group;
taskEvents[i].Order = order + i;
}

g.store.loadData(taskEvents, true);

[mankz]

Just posted 3 new examples on the example page:


Speech recognition example (http://ext-scheduler.com/examples/speech/speech.html)
Locking and grouping view combination (http://ext-scheduler.com/examples/lockingandgrouping/lockingandgrouping.html)
Desktop example (http://ext-scheduler.com/examples/desktop/desktop.html)

[Roddarn]

The Ext GWT version of the Ext-Scheduler is now available.

To sign up for an evalutaion kit, please visit: http://www.ext-scheduler.com/index.html
Live Examples: http://www.ext-scheduler.com/gxtexamples.html

//Rasmus

[DamianHartin]

Sorry for the newbie question, but does anyone have an example of loading one of these into a viewport?

I can see where it's loaded to a div on the main page:

var g = new Sch.SchedulerPanel({
border : true,
height:200,
width: 800,
renderTo : 'grid-columnsummary',
...

But I cant seem get the logic right for building a viewport in Ext.onReady() and then referencing... what...

Thanks

[mankz]

Please submit any code related questions to our support forums http://ext-scheduler.com/forum/. I'll answer you there, just remember to include all relevant code in your current setup.

Cheers

Mats

[DamianHartin]

Thanks Mats, doing so now

[mankz]

Just added two new examples;


A full server implementation using ASP.NET MVC and LINQ
A proof of concept example for in-browser export to Excel - based on Animals great plugin (using the data URI scheme)


The examples can be found here: http://ext-scheduler.com/examples.html

~o)

[joeri]

I tried the excel export, but I got an error from the excel viewer that the file type is not supported. Using firefox 3.6.

[mankz]

Did you get a prompt? Could you post the full message of the prompt? You're actually "supposed" to get a prompt thanks to a MS feature they added:

http://www.grinn.net/blog/dev/2008/06/file-you-are-trying-to-open-is-in.html

I get the prompt but if I click "Yes" on it, the Excel document opens fine...

[joeri]

I suspect the problem is that the file is not actually an excel file but a CSV file or something of the sort. I don't use the full excel, I just have the excel viewer installed. The viewer only opens genuine excel (binary) files. Generating the binary format in javascript shouldn't be too hard though.

[mankz]

Hmm, weird. It thought it was supposed to be a "real" excel file, if you check out Animals code (which it's based on). http://www.extjs.com/forum/showthread.php?32400-GridPanel-directly-to-Excel.&highlight=export+directly+excel

[joeri]

Hmm, yes, on inspection they do seem to be excel 2007 files. Outputting excel 97 format is probably easier though. For simple stuff it's a less complicated format to get exactly right.

The error I get when trying to open the file in excel viewer is "Excel Viewer cannot open the file 'file.xlsx' because the file format or file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file."

I tried different extensions (xltx, xls, ...), but none of them worked. When opening the file in an XML editor, it does look like valid XML.

[mankz]

Ok, seems like having Excel 2007 is a prerequisite for using this example. You're right, using an old version of Excel (97) would probably be a better idea. But this is still just a proof of concept, not really intended for production scenarios. :)

[Fallen Zen]

@jheid: There is no collision detection built in, in version 0.9 there was but I decided against it since I don't want to make any assumptions on how people are going to use it. Some may want the bookings to overlap in some cases - for example tentative bookings etc. To easily turn this on, I'm considering adding a boolean config 'preventOverlap', thoughts?

That would be a blast. As I'm currently doing a conference room scheduling and it sucks a bit when two people can schedule a room at a same time of day.

[mankz]

This is on the todo-list for next upcoming release! :)

[mankz]

Done! Just checked in the 'allowOverlap' config option in SVN.

[steffenk]

fixed in your svn or released?

[mankz]

Fixed in my SVN, aiming to release 1.6 in about a week.

[abhaykulkarni16]

Hi mankz,

well, i tested your code snippet on that prebeta page. (refer first post on page 12)
I inserted around 500 tasks in the gantt, and guess the results...

Yes, it does work alright.... :)

and i would like to assume a few things here as far as the functioning goes after these many records being put in the grid.
1. Its pre-beta (tell me its a major factor.. coz bugs are present) so hoping to be much better in release..
2. No server involved here so can't say how it will behave in that case. I mean, it might take a lot of time loading and rendering the gantts for 500+ recs when fetched from backend.

Still i am pretty satisfied about its functioning and performance. I think you've worked out a fine gantt component here.

Now, a few things i would like to see.
1. Gantt with at least some server interaction. (fetch the schedule from DB ) and
2. as a feature, priority based - color coded - gantts.

Keep up the good work... =D>

[mankz]

@abhaykulkarni16: Glad it works for you! :)

1. Regarding "coz bugs are present", what are you referring to? If you've found some issues, please post them in the Ext Gantt thread (http://www.extjs.com/forum/showthread.php?88699-Ext-Gantt-A-Gantt-Charting-Component&highlight=gantt). I'll take a look at them right away.

2. Server interaction is never something I will include in the package. I might create a few platform specific implementations for testing but other than that, the component will stay a pure Ext JS component.

3. I can create an example including server operations in ASP.NET for example. Would that be of use to you?

4. Color coding based on priority is a great idea. I might include that in an upcoming release, but it would be really easy to do yourself. Put a priority field on each task and assign a css class based on that field. <10 lines of code. :)

Thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it!

[mankz]

Just finished a small mashup with the RadioTime API (http://inside.radiotime.com/developers/api) that displays the program schedules for different radio stations:

20687

http://ext-scheduler.com/examples/radiotime/radiotime.html

[steffenk]

very cool!
Would be nice to have a zoom, maybe with a slider?

You could sell that to some online magazines presenting TV programs. Try Eurosport (yahoo), they never got their program to work on the website.

[mankz]

You mean to zoom in or out? If you zoom out more I don't think there would be enough room to place the program title, since the boxes would be too small. Thoughts?

[steffenk]

yes, this is always a problem. But you already have some small boxes, like 5 minutes things. But you have tooltips, so hover is possible.
If you zoom in (5 minutes scale) user would see automatic scrolling in realtime, if you zoom out (1 hour) you could see one day in complete view. Just an idea, not really important.

[wm003]

For whole screen zooming i simply press CTRL+ and CTRL- to use the Browser-Zoom functionality. All current Browsers should support it and trigger the resize-event, so all Ext-widgets (at least the viewport) will redraw automatically. Works very well for me.
In IE8 you need to make sure, the body-tag has a margin!=0 to let IE8 trigger the resize event.

[grgur]

Great work!
Thank you Mats for showing us how to use your components for so many various scenarios. Keep it up!

[mankz]

I've been playing with the iPad a bit lately, and touch support for the Ext Scheduler isn't that far away. Here's a first video showing how you can interact with the component on an iPad. Next version 1.7 will be released shortly with bugfixes and a couple of new features too, more info coming shortly. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93fUUR_CARA

21981 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93fUUR_CARA)

[DamianHartin]

dude! That is so cool :) nice work

[mankz]

Here's a new example using some of the new cool features in CSS3 and HTML5 :)

http://www.ext-scheduler.com/examples/html5/html5.html

22336

[mankz]

Just posted a newsletter in my blog, read more here: http://mankzblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/october-update/

I recently created a new Hello world screencast (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol6uVofWZgM) and print support is now available in a first alpha: http://ext-scheduler.com/playpen/print/print.html. :)

[smagen]

I found a bug during observing examples. If I'm stretching task and cursor goes over browser scrollbar, then cursor forever saves resize form and everething seems broken.

[mankz]

Will be fixed in the next release, please let me know if you find any other bugs! :)

[mankz]

Here's the first sneak preview of the next Scheduler version 1.8. http://bit.ly/dHkfhn

It's a lot to cover in one post but here is a brief list some of the goodies

* Completely new Drag-Drop implementation, "the way it should be"
* Static columns can now be placed on the left OR right.
* Refactored every class, cleaned up a lot of messy CSS
* New preset manager class capable of dynamically creating new "view presets"
* Set pretty much any time resolution, 5 minutes or 12 weeks.
* Support for snapping when creating/resizing and dragging
* About 10 new examples
* Lots of bug fixes (hopefully not too many new ones) :)

Next 2.0 version will be based on Ext 4 (aiming for a March release) and will also feature a vertical view of the timescale.

[mankz]

New day, new Scheduler 1.8 demo. Like things that snap? :) http://bit.ly/g66Auv

[mankz]

Saturday is demo day :) http://bit.ly/eRLzvt

[steffenk]

Very nice!

I think the delete row icon is wrong, should be x instead -
Or use a green - or x

Red icon always implicate error, red x also it's used often for error messages.

[mankz]

You're hard to please but fair enough, demo updated ;)

[steffenk]

:) I'm only confronted with exact the same HCI issues in TYPO3. But i have to admit that this also opened my mind for HCI issues, and for sure it makes sensible.

Anyway, you do a great job!

[mankz]

Thanks mate :) Time to close the laptop and enjoy what's left of this Saturday!

Cheers!

[gateway]

Hello,

When we try to get modified records, after changing schedule from gantt chart, we are getting original value of store, not getting modified records. Below are the code snippets.



var allRecords = g.getStore().getModifiedRecords();
for (i = 0; i < allRecords.length; i++) {
var dataNew = new Array();
dataNew[i] = allRecords[i].data;
alert(dataNew[i].Days);
}


any idea what to change to get modified data ?

[mankz]

Please use the Gantt support forums for support: http://ext-scheduler.com/forum/

[mankz]

Ext Scheduler 1.8 (and Gantt 1.2) was released 2 days ago. Here's a short demo webcast showing some of the new cool features :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRrtCrnFSdc

[steffenk]

where are the like buttons in this forum?
ok, not present, so: "I like it"!

[aacoro]

Hi mats,
I could not log in into your forum, message displaying that I am logged in. But after the redirection I'm logged out??!!

Had one question:
I was looking at your licenses and wondering why I need the Ext Js License if I buy the Ext Scheduler?
Because, if I buy a commercial license for Ext Js I am free to develop applications and sell them to my customers... just like you do.. my customer should not have to buy a license to use my products developed with Ext js??

Or am I missing something else here??
Cheers.

[mankz]

We've recently moved the forums to www.bryntum.com/forum, let me know if that solves the logging in issue.

You need an Ext JS license as our products won't work without them. Our company "Bryntum" is not affiliated with Sencha, and we just create an addon product to their framework. Please contact me at mats@bryntum.com if you have any further questions I can help clarify ;)

[mankz]

Here's a little sneak preview of the Ext JS 4 version which has support for both horizontal and vertical orientation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9KunXK8CfE

~o)

[mankz]

Ext JS 4 version is now ready in alpha version: Try it out here :)

http://bryntum.com/examples/2.0alpha/

Release notes:

http://www.bryntum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=812

[tobiu]

+1 :)

[SamuraiJack1]

This will be a rare case, when we will ask for help from our users :). We've just updated the alpha package and it now includes the early documentation for 2.0 product line: http://bryntum.com/examples/2.0alpha/gantt-latest/doc/

Among the other things - there are 2 introductory guides for scheduler and gantt accordingly:
http://bryntum.com/examples/2.0alpha/gantt-latest/doc/#/api/Sch.panel.SchedulerGrid
http://bryntum.com/examples/2.0alpha/gantt-latest/doc/#/api/Gnt.panel.Gantt

So please examine them and let us know what do you think. What topics are not covered or covered superficially? are there any typos/errors? what else would you like to see in the documentation? Share your ideas.

Thanks, Nickolay

P.S. You can also checkout our shiny new test suites ;)
http://bryntum.com/examples/2.0alpha/gantt-latest/t/
http://bryntum.com/examples/2.0alpha/scheduler-latest/t/

They are not complete yet, but will grow with time.

[joeri]

Some feedback on the schedulergrid intro guide:


It seems odd to lead with the source and follow with the introduction. Users get dragged into a piece of source they don't quite understand because they haven't had the explanation of the concepts involved.
The explanation about non-inclusive end dates on Sch.model.Event is very confusing. Intuitively it's how you expect the start and end date to work, so I don't even know why this line needs to be there.
The section on viewPreset is too brief. There's not enough there to understand what exactly the viewPreset does without clicking through to Sch.preset.Manager (perhaps some screenshots would help).
I think it's best to discuss how the scheduler is rendered before you discuss how to hook into its events. That fits more with the order in which scheduler grids are implemented.
I'm missing an explanation about the rendering model and how it conceptually works. I would try to visually represent this somehow, because flows of text usually fail to relate this sort of conceptual logic.

Another thought: will there be migration guides? I'm currently still using scheduler 1.6, and I have no idea what sort of work is involved in the upgrade (aside from going to Ext JS 4).

[SamuraiJack1]

Thanks! We'll consider your notes.

About 1) - It is the synopsys - the traditional beginning of the documentation in various scripting languages. The good module is the one, that can be used only by reading synopsys :)

[mankz]

2.0.0 is now ready. Try it out here: http://www.bryntum.com/examples/

27367

New JsDuck docs: http://www.bryntum.com/docs/

Main new features:

• Vertical orientation mode
• Scheduler tree view
• New event layout engine to avoid events overlapping
• Scheduler buffering view for large datasets
• Basic HTML print support
• Holiday/weekend support for our Gantt chart
• Dependency editor widget
• Improved resource assignment support

[mankz]

Just built a new fairly complex demo which allows you to easily interact with different groups of tasks:

http://bryntum.com/playpen/event-groups/

~o)

[aacoro]

Just built a new fairly complex demo which allows you to easily interact with different groups of tasks:

http://bryntum.com/playpen/event-groups/

~o)

This is looking real nice :-)