ExtJs: basic questions - extjs

I'm currently learning ExtJs, but I can't seem to grasp my mind arround the following.
What is the difference between the array notation and the requires notation
For example:
view['MyPanel']
model['MyModel']
controller['MyController']
store['MyStore']
requires: ['namespace.view.MyPanel']
Do they do the same or ... ?
And why do I have to put ALL the views, models, controllers and stores used in the application inmediatley in the app.js?
Can someone clear those thing out to me? :)

Requires will just load the files matching the class name from the server. It will not instantiate anything. You should require what is needed in each view/controller/model, you don't need to have it all in app.js.
For instance, if you have a MyModel that has a relation to MySubModel, then MyModel would require MySubModel. Requires is essentially about loading other classes when needed so that they are fetched from the server before being used - since using a class when it is not loaded creates a noticable delay due to ExtJS having to fetch the class from the server before instantiating it.
The models, views and controllers arrays in a controller are a convinient way to require such resources as you don't have to specify the path to the models/controllers/views folders. See the docs on controller models config for example.
A guide on how to structure your application is available here even though I don't really like that they load all views and all controllers in this approach. But it's a good start. You can dynamically load stuff later on when your application grows.

Related

Organizing AngularJS applications

I feel like there is relatively little documentation on the "best practices" of how one should go about organizing AngularJS code. For example, in many of my web pages, i.e.
index.php
profile.php
editprofile.php
There are often many factories and methods that I need repeated. For example, profile.php,, editprofile.php, and index.php all need the factory userDropdown (to get the top navbar dropdown menu). However, some of them need "modified versions of factories". For example:
index.php needs a way to get all the users and their information
profile.php needs a way to get some users information
editProfile.php needs a way to get only one user information
What I mean is that (and the above was a poor example), is that often many .js files needs some modified "child" of a "parent" factory. I find it hard to scale my application because profile.php, index.php, and editProfile.php all refer to their own factories and methods, not a base file. Changes, improvements, errors, found in one factory and is corrected, will not propagate into other files (which I find very frustrating). I also don't want to write /copy/paste services and factories over and over again. Other issue I've had is that:
X.js file need some providers that Y.js file doesn't. However, both needs providers A and B, but X needs C and Y needs D. Is it bad for me to use the same "factory" and providers" for both of them (i.e. inject A, B, C, and D into both of them?) That's the problem I see with having a base factory of a factory to serve a lot of .js files. How much space or inefficiency is it to define providers or injectable services that you don't use?
How do I accomplish some scalable angularJS code to do this, or how do you guys go about organizing your angular code? And also, what about repeating HTML templates (i.e. repeating HTML code that needs to be used in almost every page? I've heard of some service called $templateCache but couldn't figure out how to use it.)
https://github.com/johnpapa/angular-styleguide This also has an example app but seriously read through his guidelines they seem to be exactly what you are looking for and have been a great resource for me as I've been learning to build bigger angular apps.

How do you structure your Backbone + RequireJS applications?

I've been struggling trying to strike the right balance between reusability and complexity when it comes to organizing my Backbone objects into AMD's (for medium- to large-scale applications)
(A) Should every Backbone object (models, views, etc) be in their own module?
(B) Should related Backbone objects be in the same AMD module? (ie: PersonModel, PersonCollection, PersonView objects in the same module definition)
Option (A) seems to allow the most flexibility and reusability, but also the most complexity because of the (potentially) high number of files. While option (B) may make it easier to manage things, but less flexible and really difficult to unit test.
How is (or has) everyone else structured these things?
I good thing about requirejs is that it allow you to abstract the physical files into structured namespaces. You can take the approach (A) and create each backbone class in their own file, then create a "namespace" module to glue all the related classes together.
// Suppose you have PersonView.js, PersonCollectionjs, PersonModel.js as modules
// create a Person module to function as namespace
define(["PersonModel", "PersonCollection", "PersonView"], function(model, collection, view) {
return {
Model: model,
Collection: collection,
View: view
};
});
This keep the modules organized in their own files and gives you some flexibility to write one module per class without requiring you to expose this organization for the rest of the application (I really don't like to have to write require("PersonView", "PersonModel" ... ) every time I need to use the person's objects, it's easier and cleaner for consumers to declare a dependency on a "namespace" instead of independent classes).
For medium to large backbone projects I prefer to use requirejs with a separate module for every model, collection, and view. I also use the "Text" plugin for requirejs so I can load underscore templates just as I would any other module. This for me seems to be the sanest way to manage a large project and I have never really felt overwhelmed with the number of files I have.
+1 on using the requirejs optimizer when pushing your app to production. Works really well.
http://requirejs.org/docs/optimization.html
I just released an open source toolkit which will hopefully help others as much as it helps me. It is a composition of many open source tools which gives you a working requirejs backbone app out of the box.
It provides single commands to run: dev web server, jasmine single browser test runner, jasmine js-test-driver multi browser test runner, and concatenization/minification for JavaScript and CSS. It also outputs an unminified version of your app for production debugging, precompiles your handlebar templates, and supports internationalization.
No setup is required. It just works.
http://github.com/davidjnelson...

CakePhp - how does it combine files for result

I've seen the diagrams, but I want a description of how it all works -- for example -- cakephp uses the controller file and the view file. What happens? Is there anything out there? It would make using cakephp's mvc easier.
most simple request would look something like the following:
when you request a url, the router figures out what is needed and then uses the Dispatcher to open up the controller and run the corresponding method.
As the controller is fired up it includes and builds up the model that corresponds to that controller.
your method will then run and do what ever it needs to do.
When the controller is done calling all the code you have included the view class is executed which starts the rendering. It will include and render the corresponding view file and then the layout that has been set in the code.
all along the way there are a number of callbacks that are triggered in the various parts of the code, like controller::beforeFilter model::afterFind etc. Best to have a look a the api and book for more detailed information or ask a more specific question about that.
If you're at all familiar with Object Oriented code and php functions, you can start to read the CakePHP core methods. They will fill in a lot of blanks in terms of understanding the internal mechanics and relationships of Models Controllers and Views.

CakePHP and Plugins

I need to create plugins that hook into the functionality of my main application. CakePHP plugins only instantiate themselves when its own controller is called meaning I cannot affect the processes of my main application.
mainapp/action2baffected
myplugin/
I like the idea of having self contained pluggable models , is there any other way to get this to work? Creating models on the fly etc or write a plugin system from scratch with no cakeiness!
You can use components and behaviors (from the plugins) into your core application. There is one very good presentation of Pierre MARTIN Using reusing-plugins. It's a really inspirational resource.
We have put quite a lot of work into making plugins truly self contained in Infinitas
You can have a look at some of the methods that are used, but the main code is in the events. Everything from cache configs, db connections and include assets like css/js are done from within the plugin, even injecting some markup into views is handled.

White labeling CakePHP: What's the best way to provide customization hooks/callbacks to implementers?

I'm developing a CakePHP application that we will provide as a white label for people to implement for their own companies, and they'll need to have certain customization capabilities for themselves.
For starters, they'll be able to do anything they want with the views, and they can add their own Controllers/Models if they need to add completely new stuff. However, I'd rather advise against touching my controllers and models, to make version upgrading easier.
Esentially, the customization capabilities I'm planning to give them are going to be quite basic, I just need to call "something" when certain things happen, so they can do things like update external systems, e-mail themselves/the clients, things like that.
I'm wondering what's the best way to do this?
My plan is to have a "file" (with one class) for each controller of mine, to keep things reasonably organized. This file will have a bunch of empty methods that my code will call, and they'll be able to add code inside those methods to do whatever they need to do.
The specific question is, should this class full of empty methods be a Component? A Controller? Just a regular plain PHP class?
I'll need to call methods in this class from my Controllers, so I'm guessing making it a Controller is out of the question (unless maybe it's a controller that inherits from mine? or mine inherits from theirs, probably).
Also, I'd need the implementer of these methods to have access to my Models and Components, although I'm ok with making them use App::Import, I don't need to have the magic $this->ModelName members set.
Also, does this file I create (etiher Component or Controller) have to live in the app folder next to the other (my) controllers/components? Or can I throw it somewhere separate like the vendors folder?
Have you done something like this before?
Any tips/advice/pitfalls to avoid will be more than welcome.
I know this is kind of subjective, I'm looking to hear from your experience mostly, if you've done this before.
Thanks!
Two ideas that spring to mind:
create abstract templates (controllers, models, whatever necessary) that your clients can extend
write your controllers/components/models as a plugin within their own namespace
Ultimately you seem to want to provide an "enhanced" Cake framework, that your clients still have to write their own Cake code in (I don't know how this goes together with your idea of "basic customization capabilities" though). As such, you should write your code in as much an "optional" manner as possible (namespaced plugins, components, AppModel enhancements, extra libs) and provide documentation on how to use these to help your clients speed up their work.
I would setup a common set of events and use something like the linked to event system to handle this.
That lets the clients manage the event handler classes (read the readme to see what I mean) and subscribe to and broadcast events application-wide.
Also - if you want to have your users not muck about with your core functionality I recommend you package your main app as a plugin.
http://github.com/m3nt0r/eventful-cakephp

Resources