Sencha Architect is now even better! Release 2.1 is finally here and the team is excited to share what we’ve been working on for the past three months. The goal for the first minor release was to improve performance and stability while continuing to add functionality that helps developers do even more. Even though this was a minor release, we’ve fixed over one hundred bugs and added a whole set of new features. Here’s a run down of the most prominent features.
Table of Contents
What’s New
Ext JS 4.1 Support
Architect now supports Ext JS 4.1, so you can create projects targeting Ext JS 4.1 and get all the performance benefits and other improvements over 4.0.7.
Ext JS 4.0 to 4.1 Auto-Migration
One of the most requested features was the ability to easily migrate from Ext JS 4.0 to Ext 4.1 projects. The Architect and Ext JS teams worked closely to make this capability as simple as possible.
Upgrading is as easy as right-clicking Library in the project inspector and choosing Upgrade. More details are in the Resources guide under Library resource.
Sencha Touch 2.0.1.1
Architect now supports Sencha Touch 2.0.1.1, so you can create projects targeting the latest production version of the Touch framework.
Source Control Improvements
Another goal for this release was to make it even easier for teams to collaborate, and to improve interaction with source control systems. In Architect 2.1, we’ve made the following changes to achieve this goal:
- Dramatically cleaned up metadata files to make them easier to merge when working in teams.
- Settings that are particular to a user are now saved in a .architect file, which can be easily ignored in your source control settings.
- Change identification scheme from serial ids to GUIDs resulting in less merge conflicts.
CSS Rendered in the Project Canvas
We want the canvas to truly represent the design of your application. To improve this, CSS resources are now loaded directly into the canvas. The canvas now truly reflects the design of your app, without having to refresh the browser.
Improved Code Editor
We’re continuing to improve the code editing experience inside of Architect. These feature improvements make it even easy to work with code inside of Architect.
- Line numbers are now reported with respect to entire file when viewing sub elements (e.g. functions, event bindings, templates).
- Users can now jump from generated class into editing functions, actions, and more by clicking on the edit icon in the left hand gutter (see image).
- Better JSHint validations, now reporting warnings and errors.
- Find/Replace for better refactoring and speed through your code.
Templates, Objects, Array Configs
We’ve enhanced the user experience for editing and changing advanced configs. Editing these configs now brings up the full code editor giving you plenty of room to work.
Multiple Config Types
Many of the framework configs allow more than one type e.g. string, object, or array. Architect now supports these multi-typed configs, and it’s easy to switch between them. Custom configs inherit this ability.
Class
We’ve added a new item to the toolbox called “Class”. This item allows you to extend items in the framework — such as adding abstract classes. Now every top level instance in the Project Inspector (which is a class) receives several configs from the class system (e.g., requires, mixins, singleton, uses, static functions).
Message Log
- A log of messages you have received can now be accessed showing a history for the current session.
- File logging can optionally be turned on that maintains cross session history.
Access the message log by clicking the icon on the bottom left of the Architect. This icon also displays the number of messages.
Cleaner Settings
Various settings have moved in the UI in order for them to be more flexible. Ext Direct, Google Maps API, and framework library settings have all moved out of the project settings and into the Project Inspector as Resources.
Documentation
Documentation, like software, is a continuous process, and we’ve refreshed the Architect documentation. You can view them at the Architect Docs center.
Example Projects
Sencha Architect examples have moved to Github. This will allow community members to fork and collaborate on these examples. We’ve also added new examples and refreshed the existing ones.
Stability
For this release, we made improving the quality of the core product a huge priority. A special thanks to all of our community members who submitted bugs and reported other issues. The Architect team is very confident about the stability and enhancements in 2.1. Plus, new Architect bug reports include more detailed diagnostics that will help the team resolve issues faster.
Performance
Performance is a first class feature, and the team has been hard at work executing on this priority. This performance work in the product should positively effect everyone but it’ll show most notably when working with large projects.
Many of our customers are using Sencha Architect as their complete app builder and have whole project teams working with it. It’s been amazing to watch these projects grow in size and complexity! Some contain hundreds of views, and even more models and stores. In Architect 2.1, we’ve made some major improvements in performance. Thanks to our customers who worked with the Architect team via the forums and/or beta program. This greatly helped us test and improve the speed and reliability of Architect 2.1.
Background
For those that don’t know, Architect is built with Ext JS and is a desktop packaged web app. The packager for Architect is built by our Web Platform Team and runs a purpose-built version of WebKit that gives us the ability to use WebKit features in addition to features that are needed to build desktop applications. Because it runs on WebKit, we’re able to use the amazing tools that come with WebKit, such as the profiler. After profiling, what we noticed is that these large projects spent a lot of their time instantiating configs. This probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but it gave us a vector of attack to make the config system leaner and faster.
Performance Results
- A large decrease in initial load times for all apps, making it quicker and easier to get in and out of Architect.
- Memory footprint that is 55% smaller than before.
- Much faster open-project speeds and a snappier experience working with the application.
We used two customer projects as testbeds for our measurements, Liftshop and Management and here are some of the results quantified.
Performance is never done, and we’ll keep working to make improvements to the product, and make UX refinements in the releases to come.
Want to Know More?
Sencha Architect 2.1 is a big release with a ton of bug fixes, new features, and more. If you’re looking for the full details, the release notes have all the details for you to find what’s in 2.1. Also, like we mentioned earlier, check out the new and updated examples.
As always, you can find the dev team and the rest of the Sencha and Architect community in the community forums. We’re excited to see what you’ll build with Architect 2.1!
Excellent work Architect team!
Looks great.
I wish you would upgrade the Ext PropoertyGrid to have the same features as the Sencha architect grid.
It’s merely a highly customized grid
@Kac position is still a known limitation. Dimensions should be preserved.
Thanks for the hard efford to support 4.1 and tons of nice improvements…
This truly is awesome. Keep it up guys! You’re making it *really hard* for old-hats like myself to not use this awesome tool!
Excellent work
Just a heads up, your social media icons aren’t lining up correctly up there.
http://d.pr/i/zuWQ
Chrome Mac.
The Architect window still doesn’t save it’s position/dimensions when you close then reopen it, frustrating.
Windows 7 Professional SP1
Upgrade broke the first app I “converted”. What was working only 5 minutes earlier no longer loads. Also, where do you set the path to the ExtJS framework? That setting is missing from the project properties. Not good.
@Michael McConnnell –
“Framework removed from settings and now appears as config of Resource node”
http://docs.sencha.com/architect/2/#!/guide/changelog
Select the Library node under Resources and you can change the Library Base/debug/etc.
If you created overrides, be sure that you are using the 4.1 syntax for overrides.
https://staging.sencha.com/forum/showthread.php?237176-Architect-2.1-Released&p=871678&viewfull=1#post871678
For any specific problems, its definitely easier to open up a forum thread in our forums and we’ll take care of any issues you have.
Very nice release which seems like it will improve many aspects of a product we’ve already used successfully on several projects. Thanks Sencha team, looking forward to testing these new features tonight!
Thanks, Aaron. I actually found the new Library setting about 5 minutes after I posted originally. My app was originally developed in 4.1 so my override syntax should be fine. What I can’t understand is why the CFQueryReader component I use no longer works correctly. Worked fine before…now throwing and error. I’ll open a thread on the forum.
Thanks again.
@MichaelMcConnel look under resources->library you can set the ExtJS path there. Right click on the library icon and it will display an option to upgrade your app to 4.1.
@Kurt: I found that setting and went through the upgrade process. I think that may have been what broke the app. I’m guessing that the JS created by Architect 2.0 is different in certain areas than the JS that 2.1 is generating, even though I’m using the same (4.1) library. I’ve opened a forum thread here for those interested in helping me solve my dilema:
https://staging.sencha.com/forum/showthread.php?237244-Architect-2.1-Upgrade-Strangeness……&referrerid=324750
Good improvement,
Next release please provide function for
– vType customization
– ux plugins support
Thanks.
Great stuff guys! Just a note: when I upgraded my projects, the following stuff I had to fix! I had a custom property called “parent” and it warned me about it, but it also removed it! I would suggestto have some form of an automatic custom property renaming, not just remove it!
Then all my hbox layouts with allignment set to “top” automatically set themselves to stretch! The app has no problem, just in the design mode I could not see all my fields, so I had to go through all my apps to modify each one by one!
Found and corrected the problem identified in the forum thread above. You might want to look at the thread because I’m thinking this must be a bug….
M. McConnell
@Mihai – If you are able to create a simple test case and post it on the Architect bug forums, we’ll get it addressed.
@Michael – Thanks for the detective work, we’ll look into your issue.
Can it import ExtJS 3.x projects and convert them to 4.x? (the Designer specific files only – since they are Sencha’s proprietary format)?
I suppose not :(.
Than it’s useless for most your existing customers that payed for your previous versions, as they won’t redo the entire screens again (they still have to convert the manual part of the code 3.x and the missing plug-ins or components – e.g. see Pivot Grid or many others).
Breaking compatibility on every possible level and with every possible version won’t ensure you happy long term customers.
I understand that ExtJS 4 “needed” to be totally incompatible for “architecture” reasons, but the tools you sell could have made the conversion process a little more smooth, and not make it even more painful.
@H.W. I’m afraid that that would have been a little tough. Most of these types of decisions need human logic to determine the changes needed between 3.x and 4.x. We should take more A.I. courses but we’re too busy working on Sencha tooling and frameworks! I hope you give Architect an honest try.
Issue found: CSS styles added as a recourse do not load in the canvas on a Windows (7) computer. However it works on a Mac.
Excellent work guys. Memory footprints have definitely come down. A collective sigh of relief when we saw the removal of expanded & viewOrder from metadata files :)
FYI, code is not signed for Mountain Lion. So you will not be able to run it unless you change your Gatekeeper settings.
Also, if you have a retina display laptop, initial tests are not good.
Thank you sencha team. I was waiting for this release and excited to see more features coming with stability and speed. Good work !!!
After restarting Architect, it behaves much better on the Retina MacBook.
@Niranjan, @Jaami
This sort of feedback makes my morning!
@Frik if you could share a screen shot of retina that would be helpful. Yeah we’re aware of Mountain Lion (gatekeeper) issue. Glad to see a restart cleaned it up. It’s mostly a fluid layout so resizing shouldn’t be too bad.
@P. Verbrugge We’ve been working through some issues surrounding this but don’t have enough test cases. If you could share your setup in the forums this would be a huge help.
@Phil Strong made a new topic.
Just a few issues! i went from ver2 to 2.1 so I had to upgrade my projects! As stated before all my hbox layouts keep changing to align “stretch” instead of “top” if I had it on “stretchmax” it seems to keep that setting intact!
Then the tabs, if i work in a tab everytime I change something (like a grid column text name), then the minute I finished, it keeps reverting back to the first tab, then i have to click my tab all the time!
I would love to provide with examples, and test cases, I am just so short of time! i am trying to report what i find! Thanks guys!
Lastly, sometimes the architect seems like it does not want to override files when deploying! I have to manually remove them then it saves them. And sometimes the architect says it saves, but when deploying my app looks as if it does not take the changes, that is when i exit the architect and then I reopen it only to find my changes were never saved! that was since version 2 – it still does it in 2.1…
I am running windows 7 on 4bit..!
Thanks guys!
@Phil
Hey what about the packaging issue ?? there are a lot of packaging issues with SA. please convey.
Thanks
Deepak
@Mihai: Thank you for the bug reports. Fixes for both the hbox align and the tab switching bugs will be in a patch release coming soon.
@Deepak unfortunately we were not able to address these issues for 2.1. A new release of SDK Tools is due soon enough and we’ll be integrating with that shortly after. My hope is that we’ll get back to square one so we can begin to make this process smoother and better soon after.
My suggestion is that the instant the SDK Tools releases to grab it. I’ve been talking with the team and they’ve taken a very test driven approach this time around. It was something like 80% code coverage last we spoke.
I found one issue. if you copy the context text under “code” model. The designer will no response for any click or other thins, just stuck there. It’s a bug i think.
I restart it several times. There’s the same problems.
@Phil
When i start the SA it asks me for an update.
“a minor update is available for download. Would you like to install it now ?”
if i click on Install Now then just a progress bar indicates that it is being upgraded and thats it no output at all after that.
If i click on Not Now then things work fine.
can you please reply why is it happening ?
Thanks guy for this. I was impatiently waiting for this release thanks again.
I wont buy it till it supports direct source code editing and remove that silly “READ-ONLY” Lock and the unnecessary class overriding.
I’ve been using Netbeans, Eclipse and Visual Studio all my life. How can you expect to work with a “ONE WAY” Editor ?
The new improvements sound great.
@Chiva.Zhao please report this to the forums with steps to reproduce
@Deepak not sure what’s happening. Try updating w/ the latest installer from the download page.
@Info we’ll be continuing to improve the editor experience. There is much less need to use the overrides at this point. It will never be a text editor, please continue to use your favorite editor for this.
This IDE helped me a lot. Im in love with it. It surely has some issues, but since the updates are coming quickly, i really dont care :) It is saving me a lot of time of coding.
Thank you
It is always exciting to get known new version of a software you are using most. I’ve liked itemTpl editor and how easy it is to use it. You wrote at performance is greater. Unfortunately I’ve not noticed it. IDE is less responsive (for example when you’re typing) and the biggest bug wasn’t fixed. After I’ve changing something in code and restart Architect, so it is gone. Over and over again. It seems to me at Architect does not proper read metadata files. Is it known issues?
So far the application wasn’t worth its price. I’m sorry but this is the fact.
Thanks a lot in advance for your concern and I hope to get better and better product as time goes by.
@Piotr – Please post in the forums the bug you’ve encountered so we can get it addressed.
Note that 2.1 does not support hasOne associations. IMHO, you should not advertise 4.1 support without this key 4.1 feature. The project I am working on requires hasOne, so Architect is of little value to me.
@Jerry – The current public release •does• support has one associations. The original build 584 missed this component by an oversight. We quickly corrected this due to a customer report and has been available since Monday as build 588.
Aaron,
Opps. Sorry – build 588 does have “hasOne” in the toolbox. I was looking at the 4.0x toolbox which opened on old project & see that it is easy to change to 4.1.
Thanks for your help!
I still don’t really understand how to work with Architect, when your layouts are complex, that is, using custom components.
1) Let say I design a basic form with Architect.
2) I need to edit the source code to add custom components, or custom modifications not supported by Architect.
3) Once those custom changes are done, I wont be able to see those changes back in the IDE. So for me this is a big problem.
So if Architect is not a text editor, please give me practical use.
Is Architect intended to just give an starting point of the design ?
Wouldn’t be so nice if Architect can give you the ability to edit code and get the visual results, as any other IDE ?
For that I would pay even 500 USD for the license.
I thank you very much for this article, it is well explained, thanks again.
@Jon –
You can implement these changes in an override. Overrides are treated in architect as plain text. We will never muck with any changes you make there. The caveat with allowing you to write any code you want is that we can’t render it in the design view. Architect is capable of building quite large apps without ever leaving Architect as many customers have illustrated in private projects they have shared with us.
A normal grid column – adding an editor (like combobox or text field). You guys are doing this nice thing where we can click on an the object itself and add the events! however these events do not trigger – what gives?
@Mihai Pop –
Have you added an editing plugin? Chances are this kind of thing is better handled as a help question on the Architect forums.
All expired trials have been extended! Trial 2.1 and let us know what you think
Phil Strong >All expired trials have been extended! Trial 2.1 and let us know what you think
For me it still says “Your 30 days trial has expired
@Aleborg et al
If you trial says it’s expired click login as different user and re-enter the same user credentials to re download your trial license.
Hi We are looking for Sencha Touch Developer position in Newt global. The position is in INDIA If you are interested please share your updated profile to sazhagu@newtglobal.com.
Hi,
is there a version that will work on Mountain Lion?