Ext

We love to see all the different types of applications developed using Ext. SingleHop has developed LEAP, a server management application that gives the end user significant power over administering their remote servers via the web. They started off by customizing our popular web desktop example, but have added lots of neat goodies like dynamic charting, visual server provisioning and built-in SSH and remote desktop capabilities.

I recently spoke with Dan Ushman, a co-founder of SingleHop, to get the scoop on LEAP and find out more about how they used Ext.

Tell us a little bit about LEAP.

LEAP is a first-of-its-kind server management portal designed to allow our dedicated server clients to easily and effectively manage multiple servers from one interface.

Did you evaluate other JavaScript frameworks before deciding on Ext? How did you choose?

We selected Ext JS because, frankly, there is nothing quite like it out there. We thought that our unique product deserved a unique framework that offered true desktop-like UI features. The framework was also selected from about a half dozen other options by our developers for being easiest to work with and most flexible.

How does Ext fit into your overall technical architecture?

We integrated Ext JS into our own back end system, called Manage, built in PHP. The system is purely a LAMP-based setup, using CentOS and Apache with MySQL and PHP running the code. SingleHop has always been a supporter of open source projects, such as Kernel.org and the CentOS project and we’re proud to have built our infrastructure on open source software.

You have customized the Ext desktop example in LEAP — what other types of custom components did you create?

We have not created any custom components/extensions for our initial release, but we did take advantage of a large number of community-created components and hope to give back to the community in the future with any custom components that do get created.

LEAP has a custom theme that nicely fits your company look. Did you use a community theme or create your own?

We did in fact use madrabaz’s Olive Theme in LEAP. The color palette perfectly fit in with our corporate color scheme.

What has been your overall experience using Ext so far?

After some initial confusion with the radically different development process that goes along with an Ext-based site, our development team fell in love in Ext JS. The plethora of components available really help to accelerate the development schedule and are a pleasure to work with.

Do you have any advice for developers just starting out with Ext for the first time?

We found that the best way to dive into Ext was to simply dissect the sample code that it comes with. Most of the common uses for all the components seem to be represented in the sample code. We also found the community forums to be an invaluable resource. The wealth of knowledge represented was large enough for us to not even have to make a single post on the forums.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 12:19 am and is filed under Applications, Community, Ext JS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.