Book Review: Sencha Touch Cookbook Second Edition by Ajit Singh

I have been reading Sencha Touch Cookbook Second Edition book by Ajit Kumar. This book is published by PACKT Publishing and contains over 100 hands-on recipes to help you understand the Sencha Touch framework and solve your day to day problems. This book contains ten chapters with 390 pages and my review for this book as follows.

The first chapter: Gear Up for the Journey explains about setting up development environment for Android, IOS and Blackberry platforms and integrating Sencha Touch Library into their project. It explains by creating an application project using Cordava CLI and testing that application in emulators and in real Mobile Devices. It also covers about detecting the device/platform and check for the supported features that applications runs in the device. Finally this chapter ends with explanation about profiles and orientation change concept in Sencha Touch 2.

The second chapter: Catering to Your form-related Needs explains about creation of HTML5 Form with FormPanel class in Sencha Touch 2. It explains on adding various form fields like (Text, TextArea, Checkbox, DatePicker etc) with detailed explanation on various configuration properties for each form fields. Finally this chapter ends on explaining about how to apply validation to the form fields.

The third chapter: Containers and Layouts explains on various components supported by Sencha Touch framework like containers, panels, toolbat, tabpanel etc. Its also explains about various layouts like auto, fit, card, vBox and hBox etc with detailed explanation including examples and snapshots on each layouts. Finally this chapter ends on explanation about Navigation Class and how to push/pop items into  the navigation class.

The fourth chapter: Building Custom Views explains about usage of HTML templates (Ext.Template and Ext.XTemplate) into Sencha Touch application. Its explains the difference between Ext.Template and Ext.XTemplate templates, and how Dataview and list component class uses HTML templates in order to display the view. Finally this chapter ends with explaination about creating custom views and applying user actions (tap, select etc) to the DataView Component items.

The fifth chapter: Dealing with Data and Data Sources explains about creation of Model Class with fields and applying validation to those model fields. Its also explains about creation of Store Class, Ajax Proxy Configuration with data loaded from the URL and readers (XmlReader, JsonReader). It also covers about model associations, various HTML5 storage features like (In-Memory Storage, Session Storage and local Storage). Finally this chapter ends on explaining about filtering, grouping, sorting store data.

The sixth chapter: Adding Components starts explaining about working with button components, action sheet, Carousel Component, the list component. It also explains about working with segmented button, Tab Panel and Toolbar components. Finally this chapter ends on explaining about creating new components, extending component configuration properties and overriding the component behavior.

The seventh chapter: Adding Audio/Visual Appeal explains about creating various charts like area chart, bar chart, column chart, gauge chart, pie chart and line chart etc supported by Sencha Touch Framework. Its also explains about adding audio/video component into sencha touch application.  

The eighth chapter: Taking Your Application Offline explains about developing applications that works offline when your mobile device doesn't have internet connection. It explains how to detect whether your applications is online/offline using Cordova navigator API and Sencha Touch Device Connect API. It also explains with an example application by storing the images offline using HTML5 localstorage API. Finally this chapter ends explaining about HTML5 Application Cache Manifest, which is used to store the application files (css, js, html) locally in your device.

The ninth chapter: Increased Relevance using Geolocation explains about geolocation API  which is used to get the user geographical data. It explains about Ext.device.Geolocation and Ext.util.Geolocation Class with its usages and supported methods. It also explains about integrating Google maps (Ext.Maps class) into sencha touch application and display your current location in Google maps. Finally this chapter ends explaining about various Ext.maps class properties like TERRAINS, ROADMAPS.

The last chapter: Device Integration explains about various device integration API supported by Sencha Touch. It explains about Camera, Cordova Contacts API, Orientation Change and Notification API with examples and snapshots. It also explains on integrating mobile device native buttons like 'Home, Back, Menu and Search Button' using Cordova API. 

To whom does this book for?

This book is for begineers and intermediate Sencha Developers who want to know the basic knowledge on various components supported by Sencha Touch framework.It explains with simple examples and snapshots on various Sencha components.

This book also explains on how these components are used in application in order to solve day to day problems. This book acts as a quick reference and explains on how a solution should be approached for a common problem.  This book touches each and every components supported by Sencha framework. I really enjoyed reading this book and its a worthy read.