Hello all;

I am trying to find out which framework to choose (ExtJS or JQuery) or to mimic client-server (Oracle forms, Visual basic or PowerBuilder) GUI interface functionality or look alike within APEX I have looked JQuery demos (like Carl B., Roel H., and Dan M.) ExtJS demo (like Mark L., Tobias A.)

The functionality like using ctrl+shift for multi select in tabular form or arrange the column position from A,B,C to B,A,C or having fixed column heading like spreadsheets and list goes on....

Would someone who had mimic client/server screen into APEX give an input which framework would be best to use?
Also which framework would run faster on 1000+ display records.

Thank you for sharing.

Regards;

Shaun

G'day Mark;

Thank you for your quick reply. It was good input and feedback from extJS developer perspective.

The reason for using 1000+ records as tabular or grid is because its the way was on desktop application and user wants to mimic exactly as possible like
the functionality of multiselect records, shifting/presenting the columns and at last to do sorting.

Regards

Shaun
P.S. I posted question on your website regarding licensing.

I can confirm that APEX 4.0 will include jQuery and jQuery UI as I was using it earlier today in prep for a customer. A number of the new features of 4.0 are built on jQuery and they are making extensive use of it in the builder. They've been pretty public with this direction, so a lot of the community examples are also moving in that direction (I have a few examples on my blog).

ExtJS is a great framework with some really sophisticated controls, but I just see the whole APEX community moving in the direction of jQuery. As Mark stated, they are not mutually exclusive, but I would definitely get familiar with jQuery as it's popularity is going to explode in this community when 4.0 comes out.

With that said, trying to mimic client-server on the web is a recipe for disaster. Tabular Forms are a prime example in my opinion (I rant against them often on this forum). Mark makes a great point about the 1,000+ records. I can tell you that no library will perform well with that many records. Imagine the potential for update collisions if those records are update-able (and about 100 other things wrong with that scenario).

Client-server and web architecture differs in some very key ways. Client-server apps maintain a persistent connection whereas web apps are stateless, with connections lasting only tenths of seconds. This difference is what drives a lot of the design patterns of the web and your client needs to understand that. Look to other popular web applications for good design patterns, not client-server.

The 2 design patterns that I think have the most potential to replace the dreaded tabular form are datagrids, like the ExtJS editor grid, and modal forms from a report. The ExtJS grid is probably the best one I've seen of any library. I've been using a modal form design pattern a lot in a current app in which you have a report on the page as well as a form inside a hidden div on the same page. When you click "New" or click on a row to edit, the modal dialog comes up with the form without going to a new page (it's not a true popup, just a div positioned over the page so it's really fast). Both of these design patterns have huge advantages over tabular forms such as only editing one row at a time so less chance of edit collisions, only one set of form items so large select lists aren't repeated for every row creating a massive page.

Hope this was helpful.

Tyler Muth
http://tylermuth.wordpress.com

Out of curiosity, what will be the extent of Oracle support on jQuery when APEX 4.0 ships? Will it only ship with the core jQuery and jQuery UI libraries ro will it include other plugins? As bugfixes get released by the jQuery team, will those updates be supported by APEX 4.0 as well? I'm sure this has been addressed publicly, but I haven't seen it in the releases regarding APEX 4.0.

Hi Tyler;

Thanks for the input.

The 1000+ records only do displaying in tabular and no DML for 1000+ rows. Then user select less than 100 records out of 1000+ records for next page/screen to do data manipulation each individually (Yes - I end up using apex collection)

Is any library or plugs-in with JQuery to get something like this http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/grid/array-grid.html or have to build from scratch?

Shaun

Hello Dimtri;

I tried and looked your example but did not have complete features that I wanted but found this website: http://www.flexigrid.info who claims does the same as Ext Grid http://extjs.com/playpen/ext-2.0/examples/grid/grid3.html

Thank you
Shaun S.