Downloading Ext JS

The Ext JS SDK (software development toolkit) can be downloaded as a single zipped file from the Sencha website at http://www.sencha.com/products/extjs/download. This book is based on version 3.3.1, the latest release at the time of writing. As the Ext framework is now quite mature, you should be safe to use later releases of version 3 with this book, should they be available.

Ext JS is released under both open source and commercial licenses to suit both implementations and provides support to developers through community support forums, as well as subscription-based support and maintenance.

The download of the Ext JS SDK is nearly 15MB, and once extracted, is roughly 105MB. The reason for the large size becomes apparent once we start examining the extracted files.

The screenshot shows the contents of the top directory within the Ext JS SDK zip file. It comprises everything you need to work with Ext JS, including documentation, resources, and examples.

Let's briefly go through the directories shown in the screenshot.

As you can see from the relative sizes of the folders, the Ext JS SDK has placed an emphasis on documentation and examples. This greatly assists in learning to use the library and is a real credit to the Ext JS developers.

The ext-all.js file and the adapter and resources folders are the only files you need to deploy to your production web server. While saying this, my preference is to deploy the entire SDK. That way all the documentation and examples are on hand.