Katoomba, Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, Australia
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JavaFX may be another way to use Ext in a desktop wrapper?
JavaFX may be another way to use Ext in a desktop wrapper?
Hi,
Since it isn't practical to use Ext4 in Air, and since the Sencha Desktop Packager is beyond the budget for single developers, I have been keeping an eye out for alternatives that can run Ext4. Yes, there is appjs etc and the other Chromium derivatives which may be a possibility. I haven't really explored them.
I have just been looking at JavaFX which has a WebEngine object that can run HTML and JS in a native window. If you go to http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/ja...les/index.html then click the Ensemble link it downloads a Java app that shows all the UI controls etc for JavaFX. Now, if you scroll down to bottom of the left nav bar to Web / Web view, you have a browser window into which you can type a URL. So, I ran the ExtJS 4 sample pages and tested various things, all of which worked. (I then tried the Sencha Touch examples and they didnt work, so their browser engine doesn't seem to be compatible for Touch. No big deal, it was just to see.)
Reading the JavaFx API docs it seems that it is possible to access JavaFX objects from the webview javascript and vice versa. So, I imagine that using that would make it possible to access the native OS file system, microphone, video, etc as well as whole applications that can be launched via JavaFX.
I have not yet done any testing beyond the above. Has anyone else? Is this a viable option for desktop ExtJS4 apps?
Of course, the JavaFx UI seems pretty rich and maybe in some instances the app should just be written in JavaFx altogether. My preference at this stage is that I would like to write in Ext for browser based apps, Sencha Touch for mobile (especially once things like model and store configs can be shared between Ext and Touch), and package ExtJS in a desktop app for when I want to use OS components.
I did a lot of work in the past on AIR with Makana. I still really like AIR as one has gotten used to its interactive methods, os command calls, SQLite support etc. And well its been around for some time and I too have got all my preloaded templates for dealing with the sandbox.
On JavaFX, go one way or the other(ExtJS). Java is Java. I've done lots of work with the proprietary company and this is a massive enterprise. Two seprate worlds, two seprate directions, two seperate everything.
I'm preparing a large migration project to 4.1.3 from 3.3. And yes, I do have to consider the AIR App of our suite.
However, I would like to bring up one thing/question. What are the features of ExtJS 4.1.3 that has you so motivated to port/use Sencha Desktop (21K$? - 2.1K/user).
Katoomba, Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, Australia
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@Jack_s
That is a good question! It is exactly what I am trying to find out. At this post http://www.sencha.com/forum/showthre...664#post925664 Scott from Sench support said he would try to get an answer to my questions there.
@durlabh
How does it compare with Air in terms of access to the native OS etc? Can you just drop ExtJS files into it and does everything work as expected?
Thanks, sorting this out is important and I would prefer not wasting time on (potentially expensive) trials and errors! ;-)
Native OS support is decent and NodeJS integration is very good. Overall, the process was simple:
1. Create standalone application
2. Zip
3. Run through the executable or combine/ create package as per instructions
JavaFX may be another way to use Ext in a desktop wrapper?
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