Unit 1: Unit 1: Introducing the Course

About the Course

Fast Track to Sencha Touch is designed to teach experienced web developers and designers how to design and implement web applications for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. The course is task-based, with students learning by doing. Over the next day, you will create and update a web application designed for citizens of the District of Columbia to research and report crimes in their neighborhoods.

Along with covering the basics of Sencha Touch, the course focuses on best practices and design, stressing the importance of usability, optimization, and maintainability of cross-device compatible applications.

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Illustration 1: Splash screens for the two applications you will build during class

Fast Track to Sencha Touch

Reviewing the Course Objectives

After completing this course, you should be able to:

• Develop applications for multiple form factors

• Implement effective layouts for your application

• Create data entry forms that submit to an application server

• Request JSON and JSON-P data from an application server

• Output hierarchically structured information using data drill-down

• Integrate Google Maps and geolocation into your applications

• Deploy audio and video

Reviewing the Course Prerequisites

The knowledge prerequisites for this course are:

• Prior experience with HTML 5

• A casual understanding of CSS

• Intermediate JavaScript coding skills and, in particular, familiarity with JavaScript Object Notation

Required Software

The following software is REQUIRED to be installed on each student workstation:

• Adobe ColdFusion 9https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=coldfusion

• Apache HTTP Web Serverhttp://httpd.apache.org/

• MySQL Community Server 5.1+http://dev.mysql.com/downloads

• Safari (http://www.apple.com/safari/ )

• Komodo Edit (http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit )

• Sencha Touch

• Fast Track to Sencha Touch student fileshttp://training.figleaf.com/courses/errata/senchatouch.cfm

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Unit 1: Introducing the Course

Optional Software

The following software may be optionally installed on student workstations:

• Android SDK (http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html)(optional)

• ibdemo2 Cross Platform iPhone and iPad Web Browser Simulatorhttp://code.google.com/p/ibbdemo2/

• iOS SDK (optional)http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action

Complete installation instructions are covered in Appendix A of this guide.

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Fast Track to Sencha Touch

Reviewing the Course Format

This course is divided into ten units, each of which presents new information and contains demonstrations, walkthroughs, and a lab. At the end of each unit, you will find a summary and a short review to test your knowledge of the unit’s content.

The following icons are used throughout the guide:

Concepts introduce new information.

Demonstrations illustrate new concepts.

Walkthroughs guide you, with the instructor’s assistance, through procedures in a hands-on context.

Labs let you practice new skills on your own.

Summaries provide a brief synopsis of the unit’s content.

Reviews test how well you remember the concepts from the unit.

Best Practices provide you with helpful insights and information.

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Unit 1: Introducing the Course

Outlining the Course Content

• Unit 1: Introducing the Course

• Unit 2: Getting Started with Sencha Touch• Introducing Sencha Touch • Setting up the development environment • Developing your first Sencha Touch application

• Unit 3: Designing a Layout• Using Panels• Using Toolbars, Icons, and Buttons• Using Box Layouts• Using the Card layout• Deploying Tabs

• Unit 4: Working with Forms• Using the FormPanel• Handling Text• Grouping content with Field Sets• Using checkboxes and radio buttons• Working with sliders, spinners, and toggles• Specifying a URL for posting, submitting, or loading

• Unit 5: Making Data Requests• Defining a connection to a server• Working with JSON / JSON-P• Defining a custom data model

• Unit 6: Advanced GUI techniques• Displaying Audio and Video• Integrating Google Maps

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Fast Track to Sencha Touch

Demonstration 1-1: Viewing the Applications

Observe as your instructor introduces the applications that you will be building during the walkthroughs and labs of this course.

Reviewing the CrimeFinder Application

You will build the CrimeFinder DC mobile application during your instructor-led walkthroughs. You will build the application in the following order:

• Confess to a Crime form

• Crime Listing

• FBI RSS Missing Children News Feed

• FBI Most Wanted News Feeds

• Video of Traffic Accident

• FBI Podcast

• Google Map displaying crimes

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Illustration 2: The mobile phone splash pages for your walkthroughs and labs

Unit 1: Introducing the Course

Confess to a Crime Form

The Confess feature enables you to report a crime and be judged. The form features data validation, submits to an application server, and uses several HTML 5-specific form elements.

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Illustration 3: Pay a fine and clear your conscience!

Fast Track to Sencha Touch

Listing Crimes

The crime listing feature pulls data from an application server via AJAX into a data model and displays it within a panel using a template. You have complete control of the output and will learn how to re-sort and automatically refresh information being displayed.

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Illustration 4: The crime listing page. It might be time to change neighborhoods!

Unit 1: Introducing the Course

FBI Missing Children

You will fetch the FBI missing children RSS feed using AJAX and display it using a Sencha Touch list component. Pressing the blue arrow button displays detailed information about the case, a common technique used data drill-down scenarios.

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Illustration 5: Have you seen these children?

Fast Track to Sencha Touch

FBI Most Wanted

You will fetch the FBI 10 fugitive and terrorist news feeds using AJAX and display it using a Sencha Touch nested list component. Nested lists are a method of rendering hierarchical, tree-based data.

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Illustration 6: Bad Boys...Bad Boys...Watcha gonna do?

Unit 1: Introducing the Course

Working with Audio and Video

You will display a video of a traffic accident and enable users to play an MP3 podcast of an ongoing FBI investigation..

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Illustration 7: .MOV video playback

Illustration 8: MP3 playback

Fast Track to Sencha Touch

Working with Google Maps

During this course you will learn how to display a Google map and display markers based on information fetched from a web service via AJAX..

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Illustration 9: Rough neighborhood? The Event listing shows the crime details.

Unit 1: Introducing the Course

Reviewing the SubGenius University Web Site

You will build the SubGenius University web site during your lab exercises. The application consists of the following panels:

• A Welcome Page containing a marketing pitch for the university

• A list of professors fetched from an AJAX request

• A Google Map, displaying campus locations

• A list of courses, fetched from an AJAX request

• A schedule of upcoming classes, fetched from an AJAX request

• An online enrollment form

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Illustration 10: The marketing pitch

Illustration 11: Enrollment form

Fast Track to Sencha Touch

Unit Summary

• The course is presented through a combination of lectures, demonstrations, walkthrpughs, and labs.

• The course has been designed assuming that you already understand JavaScript, Javascript Object Notation, and HTML 5.

• The course consists of 6 units.

• The course focuses on developing applications for the iOS, and Android devices.

• You will build a web application to check out neighborhood crime in Washington, DC.

• You will also build a mobile web site for the fictional SubGenius University

• This course teaches the fundamentals of using Sencha Touch.

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