DEVOPSdigest

Sencha announced the next generation of its Web Application Lifecycle Management Platform.

The Sencha Platform allows developers to design, build and test data-intensive web applications and deliver the right user experience, on the right screen, at the right time. Key benefits include increased developer productivity, improved application quality and accelerated time-to-market for cross-platform web applications.

“The increasing complexity and data-intensive nature of modern web applications means developers need a comprehensive solution to design, develop and test their applications, and get them to market as quickly as possible,” said Art Landro, CEO of Sencha. “With the advancements we’re announcing today, Sencha is dedicated to enhancing the productivity of developers and equipping them with everything they need to build data-intensive modern web applications.”

The next generation of the Sencha Web Application Lifecycle Management Platform will include:

■ Modernized and Integrated Frameworks

- Enhancements to the Ext JS framework, which will embrace new language features of JavaScript ES2015, and adopt a modern and open toolchain.
- Angular 2 and React integrations will enable powerful Ext JS components, including the data grid and pivot grid, to be used in Angular 2 and React-based applications. These integrations will enhance JavaScript community developers’ ability to build powerful, data-centric, cross-platform applications.
- Sencha GXT 5 is ushering in the future of web development with Java, which will give Java developers the ability to design and develop powerful web applications with the most-used programming language in the world. It now offers responsive design, true mobile widgets, material design and a new theming system. Sencha has also made GXT faster through CSS3, HTML5 and lightweight DOM access.

■ Enhanced Development Productivity Tools

- Sencha Visual Studio Code Plugin enables developers to write Ext JS apps from within Microsoft’s new code editor, allowing advanced code generation and code completion.
- Sencha Architect empowers developers to quickly create cross-platform Ext JS applications using visual drag and drop features, and now supports premium features, including Calendar and Pivot Grid, with the release of Architect 4.1.
- Sencha Cmd provides support for ES2015 (formerly ES6) in Ext JS 6.x applications, giving developers a head start on using ES2015 in their apps.
- The Sencha Electron package contains components and functionality that enables developers to more easily build desktop apps when using Ext JS with Electron, the open source application packager.

■ Open and Intuitive Theming Tools

- Sencha Themer allows developers and designers to easily and quickly style hundreds of framework components without writing any code. Themer 1.1 enables users to easily theme applications without having to style all of the UI components.
- Sencha will open source Fashion, a JavaScript-based theme compiler. Fashion has been the foundation of the Ext JS theming system since Ext JS 6.0, and allows for near real-time theme generation. Fashion accepts most Sass source code and contains language extensions for better tooling support.

■ Improved Application Testing

- Sencha Test 2.0 now integrates WebDriver, enabling the inspection of elements and control of user agents to remotely interact with web browsers. WebDriver integration, combined with features including event recorder, screen comparisons, and results reporting, further speeds up test creation and automation for web applications.

“More than ever, developers are under pressure to rapidly build – and maintain – data-intensive, cross-platform enterprise web applications. For this reason, developers are always looking for effective and well-supported technologies that benefit from the synergies of adoption by a large ecosystem.” said Al Hilwa, Program Director of Software Development Research at IDC. “Going forward, successful technologies are those which drive collaboration between IT and business units to build competitive advantage and increase business value.”