[Geoprisma-dev] #9250 (Add jQuery Tools to base install) – Plone

[Yves Moisan]

> Yves,
> 
>   If I understand well, you propose two solutions :

First, I want to apologize for writing in French.  Gotta break that old
reflex ...  For those who did not understand, I just mentioned a
potential alternative to ExtJS : jQuery Tools (not the same as jQuery
UI).  See urls in the original mail.  The demos of jQuery Tools is
almost as impressive as ExtJS'.  Now on to Alexandre's comments.
> 
>   a) minify extjs so that the file loaded would be shorter and faster

My experiments with JS compression/minification shows a page weight
dropping from ~ 3.8 MB to ~2.1 MB or so for a typical GP page.  ExtJS
itself is 1 MB uncompressed a little over 500 KB compressed.  That means
ExtJS accounts for about a quarter of the page weight.  Compression has
an effect on the user experience : GP is much snappier.  So we want the
smallest JS possible in production environments.

However, building a particular subset of ExtJS (and OpenLayers !) in a
bid to reduce size has its share of issues (e.g.
http://trac.osgeo.org/geoprisma/ticket/13).  For example, unless there
are tools that can be used to check if we need some ExtJS (or OL)
part/component/file or not for a particular application, we would need
to remove selected portions of ExtJS/OL by hand to see if we can leave
it out or not.  There are quite a few maintenance issues related to
using the smallest JS subset as possible.  And of course we have to use
the whole bit in development to make sure we have access to all ExtJS'
goodies.  

So to make a long story short, if we can find a library that provides us
with all the basic "Web 2.0" JS UI controls (tabs, popups, video
embedding ...) and that is small enough so that we don't need to chop it
off to minimize the size of it before compressing/minifying, we gain
developer/integrator time (that is we don't have to spend time fiddling
with custom compression scripts).

>   b) or try to remove components currently used with extjs ( i.e. with 
> MapFish and/or GeoExt ) and replace them by jQuery

'jQueryTools', which is not the same as 'jQuery' which is not the same
as 'jQuery UI' ...  I must stress I'm just mentioning the jQuery Tools
library as a potential future drawing option :
<drawmode>jQueryTools</drawmode>.  I'm not suggesting immediately
forgetting about ExtJS.  But in the light of the fact that ExtJS "trunk"
for GeoPrisma (non subscribers to Ext) will in fact be a 6-month update,
what I'm saying is that if we are to find out not being able to use the
latest and greatest ExtJS and wait for 6 months puts undue stress on GP
development, then there may be other options.  

I've always found Ext to be extremely well engineered and done, but
awfully bulky.  If we find our "Web 2.0" JS library (I guess we can say
that's what we use ExtJS for) gets updated every 6 months and we'd need
to be more bleeding edge than that, might as well think of a smaller
library that doesn't need a subscription and that has both a liberal
(MIT) and strong copyleft (GPL v2+) licensing scheme.

> 
>   Is that it ?  If so, a) could be a good short-term gain IMHO.  On the 
> other hand, b) could also be good as a long term solution, but I 
> wouldn't simply replace stuff in GeoPrisma from ExtJS to jQuery : it 
> would be better to have an independent library that wraps OpenLayers 
> with jQuery alone, pretty much like GeoExt.  That would be the best 
> long-term solution.  Maybe that already exists ?

Josh Livni was talking about jQuery back in 2008.  I don't know if
jQuery Tools was there at the time.  Honestly, I don't know about the
use of jQuery* in the mapping area.  I was just mentioning a potential
option, especially in the context of an "evolving" business model on the
part of the folks that hold the ExtJS copyright.  

Cheers,

Yves

> 
>   Is that what you had in mind ?
> 
> Alexandre
> 
> Yves Moisan wrote:
> > Liste,
> >
> > Je vais en faire suer quelques-uns avec mon entêtement Plone/Python,
> > mais en regardant les améliorations prévues pour Plone 4, je suis arrivé
> > par hasard sur ce PLIP : http://dev.plone.org/plone/ticket/9250.
> >
> > Du site de jQuery Tools : "Let's face it: do you really need
> > drag-and-drop, resizable windows or sortable lists in your web
> > applications? Websites are not desktop applications. They are
> > different ... What you really need are tabs, tooltips, accordions,
> > overlays, high usability, striking visual effects ..."
> >
> > La taille de cette librairie : < 6 Ko.  On peut probablement extirper
> > d'ExtJS bon nombre de fichiers que nous n'utilisons pas vraiment dans
> > GeoPrisma, mais la version compressée/minifiée d'ExtJS fait > 500 Ko.
> >
> > On parle aussi dans le PLIP de jQueryUI.  Avec les contraintes qui
> > apparaissent avec les mises à jour dans ExtJS (v. courriel récent sur la
> > liste GeoExt), c'est peut-être quelque chose à considérer.
> > Éventuellement.
> >
> > Yves
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Geoprisma-dev at lists.osgeo.org
> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/geoprisma-dev
> >   
> 
>