Question on modern vs classic toolkits

[Gary Schlosberg]

As far as I know, greater parity between the toolkits is actively being worked on by Engineering and continues to be a goal for upcoming releases.

[valio]

If I open http://docs.sencha.com/extjs/ now and click on "API" I'm getting redirected to the ExtJS Docs for the modern toolkit.
Thus I assume that Sencha is already planing on "phasing out" the classic toolkit, once feature parity is achieved and is nudging new developers to the modern toolkit.

[dongryphon]

There is no plan to phase out the Classic Toolkit at this time. The way to think about the focus on the Modern Toolkit is that we are working to ensure your the choice of toolkit is based on browser requirements and existing code... instead of by feature set they provide (as is often the case today). Also, the choice of Modern or Classic API view is remembered so which one is displayed first should track which toolkit you are using.

[niallobrien]

Sorry to dig up this thread guys, but I'm wondering when we expect to see feature parity between the two? Also, if Modern has the same widgets as Touch, what are the differences between the two?

Thanks in advance.

[dongryphon]

The 6.2 release added considerably to the Modern Toolkit. We are pushing hard now on another large feature update to Modern for the second half of next year (as we announced at SenchaCon).

As with 6.2, there will be new features in Classic as well, but there won't be any significant new things that are Classic only, for example.

The biggest differences between Ext JS Modern Toolkit and Sencha Touch is that Ext JS is a multi-input framework, whereas Sencha Touch was touch-only (no real, direct keyboard or mouse support). Also, the Touch Grid is much improved in Ext JS Modern, and the MVC/VM feature set is well beyond what was in Sencha Touch. There are lots more of course, but best to see What's New.

[niallobrien]

Thank you for clarifying, I really appreciate it.

The 6.2 release added considerably to the Modern Toolkit. We are pushing hard now on another large feature update to Modern for the second half of next year (as we announced at SenchaCon).

As with 6.2, there will be new features in Classic as well, but there won't be any significant new things that are Classic only, for example.

The biggest differences between Ext JS Modern Toolkit and Sencha Touch is that Ext JS is a multi-input framework, whereas Sencha Touch was touch-only (no real, direct keyboard or mouse support). Also, the Touch Grid is much improved in Ext JS Modern, and the MVC/VM feature set is well beyond what was in Sencha Touch. There are lots more of course, but best to see What's New.

[Ekontos]

you say it will be easy enough to change to modern later but what does that entail? Days or months? I know if depends upon the number of components but we are currently moving from 4 thru 5 to get to 6 and will need legacy browser support but don't want to spend another 6 months to move to modern. Thanks for the response in advance.

The ultimate goal would be a full merge of the toolkits.
The barrier to this right now is the component toolkit differences and the need to support legacy browsers (Yes a lot of the community have customers that need this).

My expectation is that once legacy browser support is no longer required (thats going to be a log while off) then the classic toolkit will be dropped after the usual support period - Those with existing classic applications should be able to easily rebuild there classic apps into modern.

At the end of the day the modern toolkit is the full HTML5 CSS3 toolkit and those that aren't hamstrung by legacy support will want to be using this toolkit as it will be far more performant on smart phone, tablet and desktop for that matter.

I suspect once component parity is achieved across the two toolkits the majority of developers will be using the modern toolkit and as I said it is easy enough to swap toolkits later if you are starting in classic right now because you need the richer component set.

[Charles_Gamble]

you say it will be easy enough to change to modern later but what does that entail? Days or months? I know if depends upon the number of components but we are currently moving from 4 thru 5 to get to 6 and will need legacy browser support but don't want to spend another 6 months to move to modern. Thanks for the response in advance.

Is there any update on this question?
I have the same query

Regards,
Charles

[alexander.urban]

Is there any update on this question?
I have the same query

Regards,
Charles

I am not really sure why you want to move to a modern-only app. Modern sucks on desktop, and classic sucks on smartphones.

Moving from classic to modern IMO is a major rewrite of your application. Every user extension has to be ported, many component definitions have to be slightly modified, and everything has to be tested.

Of course, you can keep the stores and models, which means that if you have done a good job taking apart stores and views, you can reuse maybe 30% of your application.

By the way, moving from classic to modern means, first you move to universal (universal = classic + modern), and then you drop classic.

So you could as well move to universal and then decide support both frontends.