Significant Enhancements to Sencha’s Flagship App Framework Empowers Developers to Easily Move Desktop Apps to Tablets
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 2, 2014—Sencha, a leader in powering HTML5 development for desktop and mobile applications, today announced a significant upgrade to Ext JS, its flagship development platform for building unmatched cross-browser applications. Ext JS 5 is a big step forward for desktop and mobile application development as developers can now easily build and/or move desktop apps to mobile devices, with little to no modification to the existing code base and within the same development tools they already use. Available immediately, Ext JS 5 further entrenches Sencha as the standard for building apps that, with a single code base, can run on touch-based devices as well as computers using either modern or legacy browsers.
The promise of web application development is that developers can easily build applications that run in the widest range of devices and deliver to their user’s applications that are always up to date. Mobile devices and mobile apps disrupted this model as the industry moved to native apps that require independent development for iOS, Android, Windows and any other platform, or even just porting a Mac OS app to an iPad. This extended application development lifecycle constrains the timely delivery of new features and unnecessarily complicates application deployments for both IT and users. In addition, the migration from traditional, point-and-click, desktop computer applications onto touch-based tablets and laptops is a transition marked by significant software engineering work to resolve display and UX issues.
Enter Ext JS 5. With the new version, Ext JS 5, developers can now easily build new cross-platform apps and transform their existing Ext JS 4 desktop apps into touch-based mobile apps on tablets and touch-enabled laptops, through new features including:
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Touch Support: Ext JS 5 adds support for touch-based gestures and now allows desktop Ext JS apps to run on touch-screen devices such as tablets and touchscreen laptops. Ext JS 5 also includes touch-centric, customizable themes. This touch-screen support enables organizations to target a wide range of applications with one code base, and allows easy adaptation of exiting apps for operation on touch devices, thereby extending the deployment footprint and useful life of these applications with minimal cost.
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Architectural Improvements: With a Model View ViewModel (MVVM) architecture and two-way data binding, it is now easier than ever to build applications. MVVM also fosters more modular development and enhances application scalability. Built-in client-side data session management helps minimize round-trips to the server, and the introduction of routing allows deep linking within applications.
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Responsive Layouts: Ext JS 5 built apps have an optimal viewing experience across desktops and tablets, regardless of orientation changes, using the new responsive configuration system.
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Component Upgrades: As developers’ needs grow, Sencha continues to enhance its component library. With Ext JS 5, developers can now add widgets inside of a grid cell for data visualization and big data analytics. Ext JS 5 also adds an upgraded touch-optimized charting package with financial charting capabilities.
“One framework, multiple form factors and devices, including desktop and mobile—that’s the promise of Ext JS 5,” said Chris Thornhill, Chief Architect at Aptean. “Routing is very important to us, and we use deep linking into our app to create tight integration with solutions like BI dashboards and social forums. We’re also using data binding for our internationalization strategy. With Ext JS 5, we build our app once, and our developers move quickly and easily onto new projects, rather than spending time maintaining multiple code bases.”
“IT departments and developers are challenged with giving users access to their business apps on all of the devices they use. This becomes harder with every new mobile platform and device launch and our research shows that they must support five different types of device/OS combination, and it’s only growing,” said Jeff Hartley, Sencha vice president of Products and Services. “Ext JS 5 eliminates a lot of work from this exercise by providing one platform for bridging desktop apps to tablets and other touch devices like laptops, kiosks and large-format touch screens. This is a big breakthrough for our customers and the entire mobile app market.”
Sencha Ext JS 5 is offered under a commercial software license with product support and maintenance, training, and expert professional services available. The product is also available under the GPL v3 open source license. Learn More
