The View has published an article that Jack and I wrote, it is available online for subscribers here. The article does a good job walking through an overview of Ext.nd and shows off a sample implementation with the new example tasks database Jack whipped up.

Also the latest version of Ext.nd has been released and is available at the normal download location in the Ext forums. This release has actually been ready to go for quite some time, and I think Jack sent out almost 50 preview copies to those that requested it. There were issues with licensing on top of lack of time to get it out the door. For now the Ext.nd project has shifted over to a pure GPL 3.0 license to line up with the change in Ext’s license. This allows us to still include the full Ext library within the notes database and not have to attempt to fuss with special extension licensing clauses that haven’t been finalized on the Ext side just yet. Check out the forum post for a listing of all the bug fixes and enhancements included in the release.

I’ve gotten access to a url we registered a couple years ago (http://www.extnd.net/) and hope to have some time to get an actual site built for the Ext.nd project. Stay tuned for updates on that site.

On a final note, I wanted to mention that even though we’ve had a large delay on the current release that certainly hasn’t prevented work on what will become the next release. I expect you’ll see a much faster turn around this time as much of what we wanted to accomplish is already complete. Beta 2 will likely be the largest architecture change of Ext.nd to date and really focuses on making the code better fit into the Ext 2.x way of doing things. Biggest changes off the top of my head include full categorized view support, full support for including Ext.nd components in any layout via xtype, much more control over configuration options, and a bunch more.

As for the framework itself we’ve made some great progress lately. Jack has implemented a first pass at rendering categorized views and has done a lot of work to make them play nicely with a PagingToolbar. I’ve recently finished a large rewrite of the outline and view code to directly extend TreePanel and GridPanel. This change has allowed for much greater flexibility as we can now include domino components directly into an Ext layout via XType. The changes have allowed for some nice refactoring, leading to much cleaner code and increased performance.

Keep your eyes peeled, I’ll announce the release here and in the forums when it is available.

• New web interface to the Ext.nd database
• New included demo database
• Simplified deployment, no longer a requirement to copy over tons of design elements
• Uses Ext 2.0.1
• New ViewSuggest component
• Automatic conversion of several basic @formulas
• Lots and Lots of Bug fixes

Check out the Release Thread for the download

Also a quick update on our new release. We’re almost finished with everything, just down to some final testing and cleanup before we release it as I expect this version to see a whole lot more use than the prior ones

I’m certainly excited to share everything that we’ve been working on and think the new release comes a long way in making things even easier on developers. Everything has also been converted over to the Ext 2.0 framework which alone provides vast improvements to performance and consistency.

Some things to look forward to:

• Simplified implementation – you no longer need to copy over design elements into your database
• Application Profiles – this is a bit more difficult to explain without going into a lot of detail, but the basic idea is that you will have an easy configuration form that will drive how Ext.nd deals with the various components within your application.
• Simplified HTMLHead/JSHeader – after filling out an application profile you can implement the Ext.nd code into a page or form with a single @DBLookup
• And More – There’s some other really cool stuff, but I want to leave some surprises

I’ll be moderating a BOF and giving a presentation showing off the Ext.nd project.

BOF104: Integrating Open Source AJAX/Javascript Frameworks with IBM Lotus Domino
- Monday 6:15PM – 7:15PM – Swan Peacock 2

BP207: From IBM Lotus Notes Client Application to AJAX-Powered Rich Internet Application in Less than 10 Lines of Code!
- Tuesday 8:30AM – 9:30AM – Swan Pelican

See you there!

As for Ext.nd, I plan to continue working on the project and will still be giving the presentation next month at Lotusphere– See you there!

Ajax Experience
The presentation at The Ajax Experience Boston was a big hit. The session went much more hands on than my previous in San Fran as I walked through some full end-to-end examples using a MySQL database and some simple PHP scripts to feed the data to Ext. I will make the slides and example code available soon.

Ext 2.0 RC1
The Ext team has continued to crank away and recently released 2.0 Release Candidate 1, looks like they’re on track for the official 2.0 release later this month. As always, check out the download page for the latest release.

New Ext 2.0 Documents
Ext has always had some of the best documentation available for an open source framework. Lately the team has worked up some very nice overview and conversion docs to help everyone make the transition and learn the new Ext 2.0 architecture. They are featured prominently at the top of the Ext Learn page.

Ext.nd Updates
I have been asked from quite a few people about Ext 2.0 and Ext.nd. We have started working on the conversion process and will release it as soon as we’ve finished converting the existing components over. We are looking at pushing out a final release based of the the Ext 1x that includes our last round of bug fixes and even tosses in the ViewSuggest component I hinted at a while back. Keep an eye out for this release in the very near future.

More to come soon…