Ext.Direct for ASP.NET MVC

[canxss]

Hi,

I just want to get your detailed opinion about, while using ASP.NET MVC, what is the real benefit of using Ext.Direct compared to using simple AJAX in Ext JS. Because I don't have any problems or shortcomings while using ASP.NET MVC with Ext JS through AJAX calls and wondering whether I'm missing something.

I've read about Ext.Direct and your posts; although I couldn't run your TestApplication since I'm using ASP.NET MVC 2.0, I've checked out the code and pretty much understood what was going, but couldn't decide whether I need it or not.

In this post you have briefly written the benefits of Ext.Direct as:

• You can call your server-side method from the client as if they were written on the client.

• Ability to batch multiple requests and send them as one to the server.

• Using Ext.Direct for MVC you write you server-side methods and they are automatically exposed on the client.

But other than gaining the ability to batch multiple requests I don't see any real benefit. Since ASP.NET MVC enables us to use URL's easily on client-side and Ext JS AJAX call and processing is pretty simple, I didn't need to expose my server-side methods on client-side. But Ext.Direct seems mostly about that. And it also brings the disadvantage of getting to tied to Ext JS on the server-side.

So as a user of ASP.NET MVC with only Ext JS and with Ext.Direct, can you explain what did you really gain by using Ext.Direct? Did you get any performance improvement, vs? Are there other things that I'm missing?

Thanks in advance

[elishnevsky]

Hi canxss,

Basically for me there's two obvious benefits of Ext.Direct.

Firstly, one of the key ways to improve performance of a web application one should never forget is to try and minimize the number of HTTP requests made to the server, therefore I think that the ability of Ext.Direct to batch multiple requests into one is a really really good thing and shouldn't be undervalued. For example in my project I have situations when I have to make 3 or more calls to the server from different UI components. With standard AJAX it would be 3 or more separate HTTP requests, with Ext.Direct it's only one.

Secondly, I just like way of calling server-side methods with Ext.Direct as if they were regular JavaScript functions. Although I didn't have any problems with making regular AJAX requests before, I find the new way a bit easier and more intuitive.

[canxss]

Thanks for the reply. You're right about minimizing number of requests but other than that I'm OK with the old way. Until I hit bottleneck about performance in this subject, I don't think that I will be migrating to Ext.Direct.

Thanks again for the explanation.

[rjett]

Are there any advantages to using this MVC project over a regular .Net Web Application with Ext.Direct if your app is a single page desktop like application and does not involve multiple pages?

[maxigroovy]

Hi, I'm working on a proof-of-concept to demonstrate ExtJs to the rest of the company.

Paging in datagrids is a no-go here, so I looked at http://www.ext-livegrid.com Ext.ux.Livegrid.
Looks very good, with jsonstore. I also have it working with ASP.Net MVC (my favorite!).

Is it possible to use this livegrid with DirectStore? Or do I have to port the BufferedStore to DirectStore instead of JsonStore.

Could you give me a lead?

[elishnevsky]

Hi, I'm working on a proof-of-concept to demonstrate ExtJs to the rest of the company.

Paging in datagrids is a no-go here, so I looked at http://www.ext-livegrid.com Ext.ux.Livegrid.
Looks very good, with jsonstore. I also have it working with ASP.Net MVC (my favorite!).

Is it possible to use this livegrid with DirectStore? Or do I have to port the BufferedStore to DirectStore instead of JsonStore.

Could you give me a lead?

I'm sorry, I haven't played around with LiveGrid. You are welcome to try it with DirectStore and my implementation of Ext.Direct for ASP.NET MVC and let me know how it went.

[Olli]

Like 'zihotki' in message #67 I'd like to know about the licensing of this nice piece of code. Can I freely use this in a commercial product?

[geewhizbang]

Hi canxss,

Basically for me there's two obvious benefits of Ext.Direct.

Firstly, one of the key ways to improve performance of a web application one should never forget is to try and minimize the number of HTTP requests made to the server, therefore I think that the ability of Ext.Direct to batch multiple requests into one is a really really good thing and shouldn't be undervalued. For example in my project I have situations when I have to make 3 or more calls to the server from different UI components. With standard AJAX it would be 3 or more separate HTTP requests, with Ext.Direct it's only one.

Secondly, I just like way of calling server-side methods with Ext.Direct as if they were regular JavaScript functions. Although I didn't have any problems with making regular AJAX requests before, I find the new way a bit easier and more intuitive.

I've found it very easy to write requests that return a lot of different data at the same time, but they are still single requests. The batching together is hardcoded on the server. This is fine when I need a lot of different things at once, but when I need to update only one of the items, I either have to write a separate handler or send back a lot of unnecessary data.

The one thing I like is how easy and flexible it is to use a jsonReader handler for each item in the data.

This serverside batching could be done with conventional AJAX, too, so I don't think what I'm doing is what you're talking about here.

If I understand you correctly, you have a method of batching several requests together in one direct request. If so, can you explain this further?

[elishnevsky]

Like 'zihotki' in message #67 I'd like to know about the licensing of this nice piece of code. Can I freely use this in a commercial product?

I haven't looked into this whole licensing thing. I probably should. Anyways, it will most likely be distributed under GPL or MIT license. For now just use it.

[elishnevsky]

If I understand you correctly, you have a method of batching several requests together in one direct request. If so, can you explain this further?

Take a look at my TestApplication, in the top right panel there's a button, that makes four different Direct calls that are batched into one HTTP request.