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Terms, Icons, and Labels

Many classes have shortcut names used when creating (instantiating) a class with a configuration object. The shortcut name is referred to as an alias (or xtype if the class extends Ext.Component). The alias/xtype is listed next to the class name of applicable classes for quick reference.

Access Levels

Framework classes or their members may be specified as private or protected. Else, the class / member is public. Public, protected, and private are access descriptors used to convey how and when the class or class member should be used.

Member Types

Member Syntax

Below is an example class member that we can disect to show the syntax of a class member (the lookupComponent method as viewed from the Ext.button.Button class in this case).

lookupComponent ( item ) : Ext.Component
protected

Called when a raw config object is added to this container either during initialization of the items config, or when new items are added), or {@link #insert inserted.

This method converts the passed object into an instanced child component.

This may be overridden in subclasses when special processing needs to be applied to child creation.

Parameters

item :  Object

The config object being added.

Returns
Ext.Component

The component to be added.

Let's look at each part of the member row:

Member Flags

The API documentation uses a number of flags to further commnicate the class member's function and intent. The label may be represented by a text label, an abbreviation, or an icon.

Class Icons

- Indicates a framework class

- A singleton framework class. *See the singleton flag for more information

- A component-type framework class (any class within the Ext JS framework that extends Ext.Component)

- Indicates that the class, member, or guide is new in the currently viewed version

Member Icons

- Indicates a class member of type config

- Indicates a class member of type property

- Indicates a class member of type method

- Indicates a class member of type event

- Indicates a class member of type theme variable

- Indicates a class member of type theme mixin

- Indicates that the class, member, or guide is new in the currently viewed version

Class Member Quick-Nav Menu

Just below the class name on an API doc page is a row of buttons corresponding to the types of members owned by the current class. Each button shows a count of members by type (this count is updated as filters are applied). Clicking the button will navigate you to that member section. Hovering over the member-type button will reveal a popup menu of all members of that type for quick navigation.

Getter and Setter Methods

Getting and setter methods that correlate to a class config option will show up in the methods section as well as in the configs section of both the API doc and the member-type menus just beneath the config they work with. The getter and setter method documentation will be found in the config row for easy reference.

History Bar

Your page history is kept in localstorage and displayed (using the available real estate) just below the top title bar. By default, the only search results shown are the pages matching the product / version you're currently viewing. You can expand what is displayed by clicking on the button on the right-hand side of the history bar and choosing the "All" radio option. This will show all recent pages in the history bar for all products / versions.

Within the history config menu you will also see a listing of your recent page visits. The results are filtered by the "Current Product / Version" and "All" radio options. Clicking on the button will clear the history bar as well as the history kept in local storage.

If "All" is selected in the history config menu the checkbox option for "Show product details in the history bar" will be enabled. When checked, the product/version for each historic page will show alongside the page name in the history bar. Hovering the cursor over the page names in the history bar will also show the product/version as a tooltip.

Search and Filters

Both API docs and guides can be searched for using the search field at the top of the page.

On API doc pages there is also a filter input field that filters the member rows using the filter string. In addition to filtering by string you can filter the class members by access level, inheritance, and read only. This is done using the checkboxes at the top of the page.

The checkbox at the bottom of the API class navigation tree filters the class list to include or exclude private classes.

Clicking on an empty search field will show your last 10 searches for quick navigation.

API Doc Class Metadata

Each API doc page (with the exception of Javascript primitives pages) has a menu view of metadata relating to that class. This metadata view will have one or more of the following:

Expanding and Collapsing Examples and Class Members

Runnable examples (Fiddles) are expanded on a page by default. You can collapse and expand example code blocks individually using the arrow on the top-left of the code block. You can also toggle the collapse state of all examples using the toggle button on the top-right of the page. The toggle-all state will be remembered between page loads.

Class members are collapsed on a page by default. You can expand and collapse members using the arrow icon on the left of the member row or globally using the expand / collapse all toggle button top-right.

Desktop -vs- Mobile View

Viewing the docs on narrower screens or browsers will result in a view optimized for a smaller form factor. The primary differences between the desktop and "mobile" view are:

Viewing the Class Source

The class source can be viewed by clicking on the class name at the top of an API doc page. The source for class members can be viewed by clicking on the "view source" link on the right-hand side of the member row.

Cmd 7.8.0


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Understanding App Upgrade

This guide explains how to manage upgrades of Sencha Cmd and Sencha frameworks in your applications.

Prerequisites

The following guides are recommended reading before proceeding further:

Upgrading Your Application

Generated applications include two basic kinds of content relevant to Sencha Cmd: build scripts (or scaffolding) and the important content of the target Sencha SDK's. As such, you will occasionally need to upgrade these pieces. You can do this with the following command:

sencha app upgrade [ path-to-new-framework ]

The "path-to-new-framework" is optional and is used to upgrade both the Sencha Cmd scaffold and the framework used by the application.

Preparing to Upgrade

When performing any bulk operation on your application source code, it is highly advisable to start in a "clean" state with respect to version control. That is, it is best to have no uncommitted changes before performing the upgrade. This way, you can easily review and possibly discard changes made by sencha app upgrade with minimum trouble.

Upgrading The Sencha Cmd Scaffold

To bring up a new version of Sencha Cmd with your application produced by a previous version, you can run this command from inside your application:

sencha app upgrade

This will replace the content of ".sencha" but will also upgrade "app.js" as well as a handful of other files.

Upgrading Frameworks

Since generated applications include their own copies of the SDK from which they were originally generated, applications need to be updated to use a new version of the SDK. The sencha app upgrade command will replace the old SDK copy with the new one:

sencha app upgrade ../path/to/framework

The above command points to the path to a downloaded and extracted SDK.

Important. Do not use the -sdk switch for this command as you would for the sencha generate app command. Instead use the command shown above.

There may also be some changes made to generated source code if you are upgrading from Ext JS 4.1 to 4.2+.

Dealing With Merge Conflicts

In Sencha Cmd, the code generator incorporates a 3-way merge to best reconcile the code it generates with the code it generated last time and the current state of the code as you may have edited it. This approach allows you to edit files (like "app.js") in many ways so long as your changes don't overlap those that Sencha Cmd wants to make.

The merge process follows this pseudo-code for "app.js" (as an example):

mv app.js app.js.$old
regenerate last version to app.js.$base
generate new version to app.js
diff3 app.js.$base app.js.$old app.js

In the ideal scenario, you won't notice this mechanism at work. There are situations, however, in which you may receive an error message telling you there was a "Merge conflict" and that you need to resolve this manually.

In cases where the base version cannot be recreated, the ".$old" file is left on disk and you can compare it to the current version. Or you can use your source control system to compare the current file to what was last committed.

When the base version could be produced (the majority case), the ".$old" file is deleted because the conflicts are annotated in the target file in the standard way:

<<<<<<< Generated
    // stuff that Sencha Cmd thinks belongs here
=======
    // stuff that you have changed which conflicts
>>>>>>> Custom

Using Visual Merge Tools

This process exactly matches what you might expect in a source control system for a file that you and another user (in this case, Sencha Cmd) have both modified. As with version control, the ideal way to resolve these issues is with a visual merge tool.

To configure Sencha Cmd to invoke a merge tool when it encounters merge conflicts, you need to set the following two properties:

cmd.merge.tool
cmd.merge.tool.args

Setting the cmd.merge.tool property can be as simple as a program name if that program is in the PATH, but otherwise, it may need to be the full path to the executable.

The corresponding cmd.merge.tool.args property should be set according to the command line arguments needed by the desired merge tool. This property is a template that can contain the following replacement tokens:

cmd.merge.tool.args={base} {user} {generated} {out}

The template is first split on spaces then the tokens are replaced by actual files names. If the merge tool has more custom needs, it may be necessary to set cmd.merge.tool to a shell script that can wrap the merge tool.

Merge Tool Helper Properties

Sencha Cmd provides properties to help configure several popular merge tools:

For p4merge you can set these properties like so:

cmd.merge.tool=p4merge
cmd.merge.tool.args=${cmd.merge.tool.args.p4merge}

This assumes that "p4merge" is in your PATH environment variable. If not, you will need to fully specify the path to the executable.

For SourceGear:

cmd.merge.tool.args=${cmd.merge.tool.args.sourcegear}

For kdiff3:

cmd.merge.tool.args=${cmd.merge.tool.args.kdiff3}

For Syntevo SmartSynchronize 3:

cmd.merge.tool.args=${cmd.merge.tool.args.smartsync}

For TortoiseMerge (part of TortoiseSVN):

cmd.merge.tool.args=${cmd.merge.tool.args.tortoise}

For AraxisMerge:

cmd.merge.tool.args=${cmd.merge.tool.args.araxis}

Alternative Strategies

If you have heavily customized your application, it is sometimes simpler to just generate a new application in a temporary location and start by copying its ".sencha" folder to replace your own, being careful to reconcile any changes you may have made and incorporate them in the new version.

If you are using a workspace, you may need to copy the ".sencha/workspace" folder from the generated app to your workspace's ".sencha" folder to replace the old version there.

Next Steps

Cmd 7.8.0