I think most of what you require can be implemented.
The product is open source, and the source is downloadable, so if required
it can be modified to suit. There is also forum which is very useful, and
the respondents are very helpful. A few well placed questions will probably
answer most of your questions.
If required, you could subscribe to their support feature, and I am certain
the product developers would be interested in helping you. It sounds like
the wrapping tabs feature would a good addition to the extjs product.
The widgets are object oriented, so you can extend an object (eg. TabPanel)
and set your own properties without changing any of the original code. This
a useful feature that I have used to predefine certain objects I frequently
use (eg. a combo box that lists the customers on the customer file, text
boxes with predefined width, titles, etc.).
Panels can contain other panels, indeed, more than panel can be placed
inside another panel. There are various layout models you can choose from.
You can, therefore, have child tabs by placing a TabPanel inside a TabPanel.
-- And -- If required you can place another TabPanel inside that.
If you have a hierarchical structure, you may wish to consider a TreePanel
for the drill down, and other panels to show the child pages.
Tabs can receive keyboard focus, and you can add "listeners" (JavaScript
functions) that respond to events. You can listen for specific key presses
using standard JavaScript and evoke the appropriate action.
All transactions with the server use Ajax and the response can be either in
XML or JSON format. JSON is more efficient, because JSON is already a
JavaScript object and can be handled as such.
One advantage of JSON being an object is that it can contain a JavaScript
function. This allows you to build JavaScript dynamically on the server
prior to sending it to the browser using Ajax.
Syd
-----Original Message-----
From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Nathan Andelin
Sent: 30 September 2008 16:11
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Tabs in HTML Pages
From: Dr. Syd Nicholson
Hi Nathan,
I use extjs (www.extjs.com)
Yes. I was looking at their site yesterday, in addition to Microsoft's
site. They have some great demos that cover the basics. The tabs look like
tabs. There's a nice visual transitional effect when the mouse moves over
or clicks them. The content associated with the tab snaps up when clicked,
or is filled in at run-time without requiring a complete page refresh, and
can retain it's state when other tabs are activated. The advanced version
enables tabs to be deleted by a user click at run-time, and are in a
container that pans left and right when the number of tabs exceed available
space.
Let me mention a few additional requirements I've run into, which I didn't
see at their site. A tab container where tabs fill in any space available
to them (according to the size of the window, for example), but wrap to the
next line down, so that all tabs are visible, all the time. In some cases
panning left and right is not good enough.
One application that comes to mind, and developed by one of my colleagues,
queries and maintains student records, and has grown to 26 tabs in the main
window, because there are a lot of child and grandchild tables related to
Students. Schedules, Attendance, Grades, Transcripts, Medical Records,
Academic Plans, Disciplinary Actions, etc.
Another requirement is for child-tabs within tab content, as you drill down
from top-level data to child data, grandchild data, and great grandchild
data, for example.
Another requirement is to enable tabs to receive keyboard focus, in addition
to mouse events. Accelerator keystrokes to activate a tab would be nice.
Nathan.
midrange.com
