ExtReact Docs Help

Introduction

The documentation for the ExtReact product diverges somewhat from the documentation of other Sencha products. The sections below describe documentation for all products except where indicated as unique to ExtReact.

Terms, Icons, and Labels

Many classes have shortcut names used when creating (instantiating) a class with a configuration object. The shortcut name is referred to as an alias (or xtype if the class extends Ext.Component). The alias/xtype is listed next to the class name of applicable classes for quick reference.

ExtReact component classes list the configurable name prominently at the top of the API class doc followed by the fully-qualified class name.

Access Levels

Framework classes or their members may be specified as private or protected. Else, the class / member is public. Public, protected, and private are access descriptors used to convey how and when the class or class member should be used.

Member Types

Member Syntax

Below is an example class member that we can disect to show the syntax of a class member (the lookupComponent method as viewed from the Ext.button.Button class in this case).

lookupComponent ( item ) : Ext.Component
protected

Called when a raw config object is added to this container either during initialization of the items config, or when new items are added), or {@link #insert inserted.

This method converts the passed object into an instanced child component.

This may be overridden in subclasses when special processing needs to be applied to child creation.

Parameters

item :  Object

The config object being added.

Returns
Ext.Component

The component to be added.

Let's look at each part of the member row:

Member Flags

The API documentation uses a number of flags to further commnicate the class member's function and intent. The label may be represented by a text label, an abbreviation, or an icon.

Class Icons

- Indicates a framework class

- A singleton framework class. *See the singleton flag for more information

- A component-type framework class (any class within the Ext JS framework that extends Ext.Component)

- Indicates that the class, member, or guide is new in the currently viewed version

Member Icons

- Indicates a class member of type config

Or in the case of an ExtReact component class this indicates a member of type prop

- Indicates a class member of type property

- Indicates a class member of type method

- Indicates a class member of type event

- Indicates a class member of type theme variable

- Indicates a class member of type theme mixin

- Indicates that the class, member, or guide is new in the currently viewed version

Class Member Quick-Nav Menu

Just below the class name on an API doc page is a row of buttons corresponding to the types of members owned by the current class. Each button shows a count of members by type (this count is updated as filters are applied). Clicking the button will navigate you to that member section. Hovering over the member-type button will reveal a popup menu of all members of that type for quick navigation.

Getter and Setter Methods

Getting and setter methods that correlate to a class config option will show up in the methods section as well as in the configs section of both the API doc and the member-type menus just beneath the config they work with. The getter and setter method documentation will be found in the config row for easy reference.

ExtReact component classes do not hoist the getter / setter methods into the prop. All methods will be described in the Methods section

History Bar

Your page history is kept in localstorage and displayed (using the available real estate) just below the top title bar. By default, the only search results shown are the pages matching the product / version you're currently viewing. You can expand what is displayed by clicking on the button on the right-hand side of the history bar and choosing the "All" radio option. This will show all recent pages in the history bar for all products / versions.

Within the history config menu you will also see a listing of your recent page visits. The results are filtered by the "Current Product / Version" and "All" radio options. Clicking on the button will clear the history bar as well as the history kept in local storage.

If "All" is selected in the history config menu the checkbox option for "Show product details in the history bar" will be enabled. When checked, the product/version for each historic page will show alongside the page name in the history bar. Hovering the cursor over the page names in the history bar will also show the product/version as a tooltip.

Search and Filters

Both API docs and guides can be searched for using the search field at the top of the page.

On API doc pages there is also a filter input field that filters the member rows using the filter string. In addition to filtering by string you can filter the class members by access level, inheritance, and read only. This is done using the checkboxes at the top of the page.

The checkbox at the bottom of the API class navigation tree filters the class list to include or exclude private classes.

Clicking on an empty search field will show your last 10 searches for quick navigation.

API Doc Class Metadata

Each API doc page (with the exception of Javascript primitives pages) has a menu view of metadata relating to that class. This metadata view will have one or more of the following:

Expanding and Collapsing Examples and Class Members

Runnable examples (Fiddles) are expanded on a page by default. You can collapse and expand example code blocks individually using the arrow on the top-left of the code block. You can also toggle the collapse state of all examples using the toggle button on the top-right of the page. The toggle-all state will be remembered between page loads.

Class members are collapsed on a page by default. You can expand and collapse members using the arrow icon on the left of the member row or globally using the expand / collapse all toggle button top-right.

Desktop -vs- Mobile View

Viewing the docs on narrower screens or browsers will result in a view optimized for a smaller form factor. The primary differences between the desktop and "mobile" view are:

Viewing the Class Source

The class source can be viewed by clicking on the class name at the top of an API doc page. The source for class members can be viewed by clicking on the "view source" link on the right-hand side of the member row.

ExtReact 6.5.1


top

Guide for Ext JS Customers

Ext JS customers do not need to purchase ExtReact. They can use Ext JS components in React applications with the freely available @extjs/reactor library. This guide documents the steps needed to add Ext JS components to React applications.

Requirements

  • Node 8+
  • NPM 4+
  • React 15
  • Webpack 2+
  • Babel 6+
  • Ext JS 6+ (6.5+ highly recommended)
  • Java 7+ *

* Java requirement only applies to Linux. Java is automatically bundled with ExtReact's Webpack plugin on Windows and Mac OS if Java is not installed)

Creating a New React Application with Ext JS Components

If you're starting from scratch, we recommend cloning the extjs-reactor monorepo and copying one of the boilerplates to create a new application:

For example, to use the modern boilerplate:

git clone https://github.com/sencha/extjs-reactor.git
cp -r extjs-reactor/packages/reactor-modern-boilerplate /path/to/new/app

To use the classic boilerplate, replace the last line with:

cp -r extjs-reactor/packages/reactor-classic-boilerplate /path/to/new/app

Then, follow the instructions in the boilerplate's README.md to setup and run your new application.

Adding Ext JS to an Existing React Application

If you need to add Ext JS components to an existing React application, follow the steps below:

Adding extjs-reactor

Sencha provides a set of packages that help integrate Ext JS into React. Add them to your React application by installing them from NPM:

npm install --save @extjs/reactor
npm install --save-dev @extjs/reactor-webpack-plugin @extjs/reactor-babel-plugin

Downloading and Linking Ext JS into a React Application

Unlike ExtReact customers, who download @extjs/reactor/modern from Sencha's private NPM registry, Ext JS customers need to download Ext JS from the Sencha Support Portal.

Once you've downloaded and unzipped Ext JS, we recommend creating a symbolic link to it in the root directory of your React project.

On Mac OS and Linux this can be done by running the following command in the root directory of your React project:

ln -s /path/to/ext-x.x.x ext

On Windows, use the following command to create a directory junction:

mklink /J ext c:\path\to\ext-x.x.x

Configuring Webpack

Sencha provides a webpack plugin to bundle and optimize the Ext JS components you use in your application. Add it to your webpack config as follows:

// import the plugin
const ExtReactWebpackPlugin = require('@extjs/reactor-webpack-plugin');

...

// then, in your webpack config options:
return {
    plugins: [
        new ExtReactWebpackPlugin({
            sdk: 'ext', // the symbolic link you created in the previous step
            theme: 'theme-material', // the name of the Ext JS theme package to use,
            toolkit: 'modern', // "modern" or "classic"
            packages: [ 'calendar', 'charts' ] // additional Ext JS packages to include,
            production: false // set to true for production builds to compress the output bundle
        })
    ]
}

If using webpack-dev-server, make sure that the build directory is in the contentBase config.

contentBase: "build"

If contentBase is set to another directory, you can change the value to an array and add "build":

contentBase: ["static", "build"]

For more information on configuring the ExtReactWebpackPlugin, see Building with Webpack.

You can also use the webpack configuration file in the Ext JS + React Modern Boilerplate for reference.

Configuring Babel

In order to build your application, @extjs/reactor-babel-plugin must be included in your babel configuration and ES6 module transpilation must be turned off. Here is an example .babelrc:

{
  "presets": [
    [ "es2015", { "modules": false } ],
    "stage-2",
    "react"
  ],
  "plugins": [
    "@extjs/reactor-babel-plugin"
  ]
}

Note: disabling ES6 module transpilation in babel doesn't prevent you from using import statements. It just defers the processing of those statements to Webpack, which enables tree-shaking and will help descrease the size of your application bundle.

Updating index.html

If you're using html-webpack-plugin, the JavaScript and CSS resources generated by ExtReactWebpackPlugin will automatically be added to your index.html file at build time. If not, you'll need to add them manually:

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1, user-scalable=no">
    <link href="ext-react/ext.css" rel="stylesheet">
    ...
</head>
<body>
    ...
    <script type="text/javascript" src="ext-react/ext.js"></script>
    ...
</body>

HTML Doctype

The HTML5 doctype declaration is required for Ext JS components to display properly. Please make sure that this declaration is present at the top of your HTML document:

<!doctype html>

Viewport Meta Tag

Ext JS requires a viewport meta tag. This should be added to the <head> element in your index.html.

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1, user-scalable=no">

Launching your Application

The @extjs/reactor package provides a launch function to using instead of ReactDOM.render():

launch(React.Element/Function)

To launch your app, add the following to your index.js file (your webpack entry point):

import { launch } from '@extjs/reactor';
import App from './App';

launch(<App/>);

The launch function renders the specified component into the document body. It also accepts a callback function that returns the component to be rendered:

launch(() => {
  // do some initialization before initial render
  // ...

  // return the component to be rendered
  return <App/>;
})

The launch function serves two purposes:

  1. It delays your App's initial render until the Ext JS class system is fully initialized
  2. It creates a viewport, which is needed for creating components that take up the full height and width of the screen.

When using launch you do not need a separate target <div id="root"/> in your index.html file. If you have one you should remove it. The code above replaces the typical code for launching a React app, which generally looks something like:

import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import App from './App';

ReactDOM.render(<App/>, document.getElementById('root'));

renderWhenReady(Component)

If you do not need to create fullscreen components (for example if you're using Ext JS components with another layout system), you can apply the renderWhenReady higher-order component to topmost component containing an Ext JS element, omit the launch function, and render to a target element as is customary with React. This is especially useful if you're building a library of components based on Ext JS and you don't want to require the applications that use your library to call launch.

// App.js
import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { Panel } from '@extjs/reactor/modern';
import { renderWhenReady } from '@extjs/reactor';

class App extends Component {
    render() {
        return (
            <Panel title="Ext JS">Hello World!</Panel>
        )
    }
}

export default renderWhenReady(App);
// index.js
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import App from './App';

ReactDOM.render(<App/>, document.getElementById('root'));

React Hot Loader

Here is an example that uses the launch function's callback parameter to enable react-hot-loader. The callback is passed a DOM element that can be used as the target when calling ReactDOM.render.

import React from 'react'
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom'
import { AppContainer } from 'react-hot-loader'
import { launch } from '@extjs/reactor';
import App from './App'

let viewport;

const render = (Component, target) => {
    ReactDOM.render(
        <AppContainer>
            <Component/>
        </AppContainer>,
        target
    )
}

launch(target => render(App, viewport = target));

if (module.hot) {
    module.hot.accept('./App', () => render(App, viewport));
}

ESLint

If you're using ESLint, add Ext as an allowed global:

"globals": {
    "Ext": true
}

Using Ext JS Components in React

Importing Components

The @extjs/reactor package makes all Ext JS classes with xtypes available as React components. Component names are derived from the capitalized, camel-cased form of the xtype. For example, Ext.grid.Grid has an xtype of grid, and can be imported thusly:

import { Grid } from '@extjs/reactor/modern';

If using the classic toolkit, import from @extjs/reactor/classic.

import { Grid } from '@extjs/reactor/classic';

Dashes in xtypes are be converted to underscores. For example, the "d3-heatmap" xtype can be imported using:

import { D3_HeatMap } from '@extjs/reactor/modern';

Configuring Components

React props are converted to Ext JS configs. Here's a typical use of Ext.grid.Grid:

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { Grid, Column } from '@extjs/reactor/modern';

export default class UsersGrid extends Component {

    store = Ext.create('Ext.data.Store', {
        fields: ['name', 'email'],
        data: [
            { name: 'Tim Smith', email: '[email protected]' },
            { name: 'Jill Lindsey', email: '[email protected]' }
        ]
    })

    render() {        
        return (
            <Grid title="Users" store={this.store}>
                <Column text="Name" dataIndex="name"/>
                <Column text="Email" dataIndex="email"/>
            </Grid>
        )
    }

}

In the example above, we set the Grid's title and store configs using props. We set the columns config using Column child elements instead of using the columns prop. Both forms are acceptible, but we think that using child elements is more intuitive for React developers, so this is the form you'll see in all of our examples. ExtReact automatically knows to map certain child elements like Column to configs on the parent component. Another example of this is Menu:

<Button text="Options">
    <Menu>
        <MenuItem text="Options 1"/>
        <MenuItem text="Options 2"/>
        <MenuItem text="Options 3"/>
    </Menu>
</Button>

Which can also be written as:

<Button 
    text="Options"
    menu={[
        { text: 'Option 1' },
        { text: 'Option 2' },
        { text: 'Option 3' }
    ]}
/>

Handling Events

Any prop starting with "on" followed by a capital letter is automatically converted to an Ext JS event listener. Since Ext JS events are all lower-case, case is not preserved. You're free to use camel-case, which is common in React.

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { SliderField } from '@extjs/reactor/modern';

export default function MyComponent() {
    return (
        <SliderField
            minValue={0}
            maxValue={100}
            onChange={(slider, value) => console.log(`Value set to ${value}`)}
        />
    )
}

Event handler props can also take an object with additional options:

<Button 
    onPaint={{
        single: true, // handler will only be called once
        fn: () => {...}
    }}
/>

You can also use a listeners object as is common in traditional Ext JS:

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { SliderField } from '@extjs/reactor/modern';

export default function MyComponent() {
    return (
        <SliderField
            minValue={0}
            maxValue={100}
            listeners={{
                change: (slider, value) => console.log(`Value set to ${value}`)
            }}
        />
    )
}

Special Props

rel

Any prop that takes a subclass of Ext.Widget can be replaced with a child element. To use a child element to replace a prop, set the child's rel prop to the name of the prop being replaced. For example, the menu prop on Button can be replaced with a child <Menu> element:

<Button text="Theme">
    <Menu rel="menu">
        <MenuItem text="Triton"/>
        <MenuItem text="iOS"/>
        <MenuItem text="Material"/>
    </Menu>
</Button>

defaults

Use the defaults prop to apply a set of props to all children. For example, to use flex: 1 for all items in a container:

<Container layout="vbox" defaults={{ flex: 1 }}>
    <Container>Item</Container>
</Container>

The ref Prop

Refs point to Ext JS component instances:

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { SliderField } from '@extjs/reactor/modern';

export default class MyComponent {
    render() {
        return (
            <SliderField
                ref={ slider => this.slider = slider }
                minValue={0}
                maxValue={100}
                onChange={() => this.onChange()}
            />         
        )
    }

    onChange() {
        console.log('Slider value', this.slider.getValue()); // this.slider is an Ext.field.Slider
    }
}

Using HTML Elements and Non-ExtReact Components Inside of ExtReact Components

HTML elements are wrapped in an Ext.Component instance when they appear within an ExtReact Component. This is allows ExtReact layouts to correctly position non-ExtReact components. For example...

<Panel layout="hbox">
    <div>left</div>
    <div>right</div>
</Panel>

... will result in two divs side-by-side. The component structure created is equivalent to:

Ext.create({
    xtype: 'panel',
    layout: 'hbox'
    items: [{
        xtype: 'component',
        html: '<div>left</div>'
    }, {
        xtype: 'component',
        html: '<div>right</div>'
    }]
});

Creating your own Ext JS Components

You can create your own Ext JS Components using Ext.define, just as you would in traditional Ext JS code. Use the reactify function from @extjs/reactor to convert a your Ext JS component to a React component. For example:

import { reactify } from '@extjs/reactor';

const MyGrid = Ext.define('MyPackage.view.MyGrid', {
    extend: 'Ext.grid.Grid',
    ...
})

export default reactify(MyGrid);

Comparing ExtReact to Ext JS + Reactor

Ext JS customers that use @extjs/reactor to import Ext JS components into React applications get all of the same functionality as ExtReact customers. The only differences are as follows:

  • Ext JS customers need to download, unzip, and point to the Ext JS SDK manually by setting reactor-webpack-plugin's sdk config. ExtReact customers install @extjs/ext-react via Sencha's private NPM registry.

  • Ext JS customers can use either the modern or classic toolkit via reactor-webpack-plugin's toolkit config. ExtReact is based on the modern toolkit only.

  • Ext JS customers import components from @extjs/reactor/modern or @extjs/reactor/classic. ExtReact customers import from @extjs/ext-react (and other ext-react-* packages).

  • Ext JS customers need to explicitly list the Ext JS packages used in their app by setting reactor-webpack-plugin's packages config.

ExtReact 6.5.1