From Learn About the Ext JavaScript Library

So you've been through the Debugging Guide and have hit a road block. What then?

1. The online examples. A good starting place is the online demo examples. There is a chance one of those demos does something close to what you need.
2. The offline examples. When you download and extract ExtJS, you'll find an examples folder. This folder has additional examples not included in the example index page. For example, there is a state folder that contains an example of how to use Ext's StateManager to manage state server-side rather than client-side with cookies.
3. The API documentation. Learn to harness the content of this resource! The documentation is constantly being improved. Couldn't find something you think should have been in there or want to provide some more examples for the docs...here is your chance.
4. ExtJS IRC chat. (Server: irc.freenode.net Room: #extjs)
5. Help Forums. The ExtJS Help Forums can be a great resource to find and get help. A guide on how to get the most out of the help forums follows.

Finding Help

Chances are your question or problem has come up before. So rather than asking the same question over again, search first.

1. Google Search. Google's search of the ExtJS forums is less restrictive than vBulletin's built-in search feature. This tool will help you zero in on relevant posts quickly.
2. Forum Search. vBulletin's advanced search can help with restricting the searches to particular users, timeframes, or subforums.

Getting Help

You will have the best success in the help forums if you follow some guidelines.

1. Check the FAQs first.
2. Search the forums

Improper Posting

Here is what you should NOT do.

• Seems people commonly overlook common courtesy so these cautions will be mentioned first. Ignoring these suggestions may result in you getting scorned by an otherwise productive guy who feels your laziness.

Nondescriptive Titles

Write a descriptive title for your new thread. Avoid meaningless titles that convey nothing about the nature of your specific problem and thus are very unlikely to catch the attention of a potential (but busy) helper or that would render searches useless.

Do NOT use titles that say:

• "'help'" (we already know you want help)
• "'urgent'" (this only annoys people)
• "'what is wrong with this'" (use this if you want less people to look)

Argue with someone responding

• Don't get angry or nervous if you get confusing or even wrong advice.
• The helper is also human and can make mistakes. He/she made a genuine attempt to advance you to your goals.
• A simple "Hey, your solution doesn't work" is sufficient. You should also post the outcome of implementing the suggestion.

Proper Posting

Here is what you SHOULD do

• If you are expecting someone to invest the time to help you, please invest some time in helping them to help you.
• Title your thread appropriately (use a descriptive title as mentioned above).
• State the intended final behavior and/or look of the application you are developing. It is much, much, much easier to give a qualified advice for a potential helper if he/she knows what are you trying to achieve.
• Post screenshots of the layout. A picture is worth 1000s of words.
• Post Code.
  • Provide the part of code that you think is causing trouble
    enclosed in [php][/php] or [code][/code] tags.
    
  • Do NOT post your entire application; it is too much to read and understand for a helper so he/she can easily ignore posts with lengthy code. Don't worry, if you post irrelevant portions of code the helper will ask what is needed.
• Post a link to a live page that shows the simplest working example of your problem (if at all possible).
• Provide error messages (if any) produced by Firebug.
• Explain what you have already done or tried in the attempt to make your application working. Maybe you have tried all possibilities and you have discovered a bug.
• If you get reply: "Read the doc part XY" then Read the doc partXY.
• Do you really want help? Provide a complete working example.
  • If you provide a complete page of code that can be dropped into an existing directory in the Ext structure without modification it makes it much easier for someone to help you.
  • It doesn't have to be a lot of code (it should be the minimum amount required to show the problem), but it should work as-is.
  • For example, if you drop a page into the /examples folder, all script/css references relative to that folder will work the same for everyone. This makes life much easier for someone trying to help than having to try to reconstruct your page from code snippets, and will make your getting a helpful response much more likely.
• Other tips:
  • When posting a question use the question mark as icon for your thread
  • When you find the solution, post it in the thread for others to see and to help them who are struggling with the same problem
  • Change the thread name by adding [solved] in front of it
  • Change the Icon to thumbs up to make clear that it has been solved

Forum Post How to ___?

New Posts

Edit Posts

Click Edit on 'first' post and then click advanced to change title or delete thread.

Advanced mode

While in advanced mode in any post you have access to the advanced editor which has buttons for adding code or php tags.

How to post code properly

When you post code make sure you wrap the code inside either [php][/php] or [code][/code] tags . Also make sure that you properly indent your code with spaces, not tabs. There are a couple of tools that you can use to cut/paste your code into to ensure it is legible:

• For javascript code use http://jsbeautifier.org/
• For JSON use http://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/
• Clean up any stray commas or other errors here: http://jslint.com
• For code and color formatting use http://quickhighlighter.com/

Notice the difference in the images below. It is much more likely the post on the right will get help compared to the unformatted code shown in the left image.

Watch a video to produce properly formatted code here

Posting a working showcase

If you are asked to post a working showcase, use the follow template as a pattern. Notice how someone would be able to cut and paste this entire code and drop it into local directory and just run it as is. For a more complete example of this see this thread. Again, the idea is to post HTML + javascript code that someone can copy from your post and paste it into, for example, ext/examples, navigate to the HTML file and then run it so someone can see the result and can then help debug your code.

<html>
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
        <title id='title'>Title</title>
 
        <!-- ** CSS ** -->
        <!-- base library -->
        <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../resources/css/ext-all.css" />
 
        <!-- overrides to base library -->
 
 
        <!-- ** Javascript ** -->
        <!-- base library -->
        <script type="text/javascript" src="../../adapter/ext/ext-base.js"></script>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="../../ext-all-debug.js"></script>
 
 
        <!-- overrides to base library -->
 
        <!-- extensions -->
 
        <!-- page specific -->
 
        <script type="text/javascript">
        Ext.BLANK_IMAGE_URL = '../../resources/images/default/s.gif';
 
        Ext.onReady(function(){
 
            //your onReady code here 
 
        }); //end onReady
        </script>
 
    </head>
    <body>
    </body>
</html>

Hopelessly Lost

You've been through all of the above and can't get it working or you're just too busy or don't want to do it, what else can you do?

• Buy a Support Subscription
• Contract someone to help.