Sencha has released Sencha GXT 4, the latest update to the company’s Java framework for building HTML5 web applications. This release is focused around support for touch and gestures for tablets and touch screen laptops.
Sencha GXT offers UI components that are interoperable with native GWT (formerly Google Web Toolkit) components. These components include HTML5 grids, trees, lists, forms, menus, toolbars, panels and windows. Also new is Triton, a GXT theme that is optimized for the tablet application experience that enables the use of a wider contact surface suitable for fingertips on tablets.
Touch screen device support in GXT 4 includes:
- Gesture Recognizers: Combine browser touch events such as touchstart, touchmove and touchend, and synthesize them into gestures. GXT 4 implements ‘Gesture Recognizers’ to convert touch events into logical gestures such as double tap, and long press.
- Touch-Enabled Components: All of the out-of-the-box GXT components have been enhanced to respond to touch and gestures. In most cases, developers will not need to update their application code to take advantage of these features.
- Touch Scroller: Improves the browser scrolling experience on touch-sensitive devices. Support for GWT 2.8 and Java 1.8 are now included.