DEVOPSdigest

Sencha announced the general availability of its flagship Ext JS 6.2 and core products Sencha Cmd 6.2, Sencha Architect 4.0, and the new Sencha Themer 1.0.

With these latest releases, Sencha is introducing advanced data visualization capabilities along with new framework components, enhanced web application development tools, and solutions for faster application theming, to help improve developer productivity and accelerate time to market.

With the new adapter for D3.js (Data Driven Documents library), Sencha is further helping organizations find efficient and intuitive ways to present their complex data for mobile and web applications. D3 provides spectacular visuals that go beyond normal charts and graphs to help users understand very large and complex data sets, and with the new adapter, developers can build visualizations that fit seamlessly into the user experience created within their Ext JS applications.

“We’re seeing a growing need in the market to analyze complex data sets within web applications. Increasingly, development teams are being asked to provide capabilities for real-time analysis of that data – and until now, sophisticated visualization technology was out of reach for many organizations due to cost and resource requirements,” said Art Landro, CEO at Sencha. “With Ext JS 6.2, we’re bringing leading-edge data visualization capabilities in the form of D3 and data analytics to any Ext JS web application consumer or developer. Now, organizations can have powerful visualizations such as heat maps and animations to quickly make intelligent business decisions using their web applications.”

Ext JS 6.2 delivers new features to help developers build powerful, data-rich, cross-platform web applications including:

- D3.js adapter, enabling developers to add sophisticated D3.js data visualizations in Ext JS apps

- Calendar component, helping users easily view/manage events and schedules

- Material Design theme, enabling developers to embrace modern UX design paradigms

- Enhanced Pivot Grid, allowing users to analyze and summarize data on both desktop and mobile

- Enhanced Data Exporter, allowing users to export their data in a variety of different formats

Sencha Architect 4.0 empowers developers to quickly create new cross-platform Ext JS applications for mobile devices and modern browsers on the desktop. Using drag and drop features, developers spend less time on manual coding, helping organizations accelerate the time to market of their applications.

Key enhancements in Architect 4.0 include:

- Support for mobile and desktop app development using Ext JS 6.2

- Integration with Sencha Themer, allowing customized themes to be imported into Architect

- Packaging enhancements that make it faster and easier to create hybrid mobile apps

- Performance improvements through the use of GitHub Electron for packaging

With Sencha Themer 1.0, developers can quickly and easily design customized application themes in a visual environment, without writing a single line of code. The tool uses Sencha Cmd 6.2 to export themes created within Themer as Sass files and use them as custom themes, providing an easy way for designers (usually not familiar with programming) to create new themes. Sencha Themer gives users access to all Ext JS components and an inspection tool to set fine-grained styles to change their look-and-feel.

Sencha Cmd 6.2 provides a full set of lifecycle management features to complement Sencha framework projects such as scaffolding, code minification, production build generation and more. The latest version, Cmd 6.2, has been updated to support all of the new capabilities in Architect 4.0 and Ext JS 6.2.