A summary of the decision process at ]project-open[ for choosing Sencha ExtJS/Touch as the base for the mobile strategy. "Serious Sencha" summarizes enterprise requirements for mobile/desktop apps, and how they are different from usual requirements.

1. Serious Sencha
Using Sencha for Enterprise Applications
Learned lessons from the first
Sencha projects at ]project-open[
frank.bergmann@project-open.com

2. Serious
Sencha
“Serious Sencha”
applications cater to
different
requirements
compared to
“normal” Web
applications.
 Serious Amounts of Data
– 100.000s of business objects
– 100s of different object types
– Densely interconnected data
 Serious Numbers of Users
– 1.000s of concurrent users
– 10.000s of occasional users
– Spanning different levels of the hierarchy with different information
needs
 Serious Application Size
– 100s of pages and lists of objects
– Business objects are relatively “homogeneous”, so many pages look
similar and should reduce boiler plate code
 Serious Security
– Data include customer contacts, financial information, project details
– Users need a maximum of information to be productive, but as few
as possible to avoid data leaks
 Serious Availability
– Organizations across several time zones don’t allow for downtimes
 Serious Lifecycles
– Business software typically operates between 5 and 20 years during
which there are new versions, updates and patches rollout out to
thousands of users.

3. Past Sencha Projects
 Ticket Tracker GUI
using Sencha Ext-JS
 Various Sencha Ext-
JS charts as
graphical indicators
 Under dev: Sencha
Ext-JS Gantt Editor
 Under dev: Sencha
Touch Timesheet
logging

4. Reasons to
Choose
“Sencha”
 Integrated Strategy: Desktop +
Mobile (Ext-JS + Touch), code &
knowledge sharing.
 Consistent framewlrks – all elements
can be combined (as opposed to
jQuery and others(?))
 Both Ext-JS and Touch are leading
frameworks in their area
 Sencha dual licensing is (more or
less…) compatible with ]project-
open[ enterprise open source model

5. Overall
Experience
 Performing:
Ext-JS has proved capable to deal with complex
applications with medium amounts of data (10.000
tickets)
 Cool:
Both Ext-JS and Touch are cutting edge GUIs.
 Difficult to learn:
Both tools have long learning curves, and
sometimes it still takes 2h to perform very simple
tasks.
 Converging:
Differences between Sencha Touch and Sencha
Ext-JS have converged. ]po[ code is still separate,
but the time savings was massive.

6. Ext-JS/Touch Architecture
ServerServer
]po[ Server]po[ Server
REST
Interface
REST
Interface
Server:
REST API
Mobile ClientMobile Client
NoteNavigationViewNoteNavigationView
NoteListNoteList
NoteDetailNoteDetail
GUI View:
Pages & Panels
NoteStoreNoteStore
• Id: 12345
• note: „asdf@asdf.com“
• note_type_id: 11508
• note_status_id: 11400
• object_id: 624
• Id: 12346
• note: „http://www.test.com/“
• note_type_id: 11510
• note_status_id: 11400
• object_id: 8868
. . .
NoteModelNoteModel
• Id: integer
• note: text
• note_type_id: integer
• note_status_id: integer
• object_id: integer
„Proxy“„Proxy“
Data:
Model & Store
Network:
Interface

7. Learned
Lessons
 Avoid loading all data into the app at
application startup
– This can take a while with 100.000 customer
contacts…
– The ]po[ REST back-end now supports a)
compression
 References vs. object names:
We now use “de-normalized” views instead
of sending raw table data
 “Dependent stores” (different views at the
same data) are an issue – learn to work
around until the next main release solves
the issue.

8. Thank
You!
frank.bergmann@project-open.com
www.project-open.com
(Frank Bergmann and Klaus Hofeditz)