Ext JS 4: Preserving State on the Server

The goal of persisting state between sessions is to allow a user to return to a screen that they had previously customized. Ext JS 4 enables you to save the current state of windows, grids, and panels in a border layout.

Other Ext components can be extended to be state-aware for application specific uses.
Saving state information as browser cookies or into HTML5 localstorage is directly supported by Ext, however, the framework does not include a state provider for storing state information on an application server.

To enable state management you must invoke the Ext.state.Manager.setProvider() method from within your application initialization code. You must also configure a number of component properties that indicate that the object is stateful.

Initializing the Stateful Framework

The first step in enabling the stateful framework is to invoke the Ext.state.Manager.setProvider() method to tell Ext JS where to physically store state information. Typically this is implemented from inside of the app.js launch method as illustrated below, which stores state info as either a browser cookie or into HTML5 LocalStorage, depending on the level of browser support (IE 6/IE 7 do not support localstorage, or anything else that’s even remotely interesting for that matter).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

// app.js launch: function() {  if (Ext.supports.LocalStorage) {   Ext.state.Manager.setProvider(     Ext.create('Ext.state.LocalStorageProvider')   );  } else {   Ext.state.Manager.setProvider(     Ext.create('Ext.state.CookieProvider')   );  } }

Making a Component Instance Stateful

Instances of Ext.window.Window, Ext.grid.Panel, and Ext.panel.Panel that are contained within a border layout will automatically maintain state so long as you add the stateful:true and stateId: [some id] as illustrated by the following example:

1 2 3 4 5 6

Ext.create('Ext.window.Window', {  title: 'Hello',  layout: 'fit',  stateful: true,  stateId: 'mystatefulwindow' }).show();

Every time a user drags, resizes, minimizes, or maximizes the window, state information will be saved out through the designated state provider.

Storing Stateful Information on a Server

Sencha doesn’t provide a mechanism for publishing state information to a webservice, so I thought that I would fill in the gap by creating my own:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

Ext.define('MyApp.util.JsonPStorageProvider', {     /* Begin Definitions */       extend : 'Ext.state.Provider',     alias : 'state.jsonpstorage',       config: {        userId : null,        url: "http://www.senchatraining.com/ftextjs4/webservices/stateprovider.cfc",        timeout: 30000     },       constructor : function(config) {         this.initConfig(config);         var me = this;           me.restoreState();         me.callParent(arguments);     },     set : function(name, value) {         var me = this;           if( typeof value == "undefined" || value === null) {             me.clear(name);             return;         }         me.persist(name, value);         me.callParent(arguments);     },     // private     restoreState : function() {         var me = this;         Ext.data.JsonP.request({             url : this.getUrl(),             params : {                 userId : this.getUserId(),                 method : 'get'             },             disableCaching : true,             success : function(results) {                 for(var i in results) {                     this.state[i] = this.decodeValue(results[i]);                 }             },             failure : function() {                 console.log('failed', arguments);             },             scope : this         });     },     // private     clear : function(name) {         this.clearKey(name);         this.callParent(arguments);     },     // private     persist : function(name, value) {         var me = this;         Ext.data.JsonP.request({             url : this.getUrl(),             params : {                 userId : this.getUserId(),                 method : 'save',                 name : name,                 value : me.encodeValue(value)             },             disableCaching : true,             success : function() {                 // console.log('success');             },             failure : function() {                 console.log('failed', arguments);             }         });     },     // private     clearKey : function(name) {         Ext.data.JsonP.request({             url : this.getUrl(),             params : {                 userId : this.getUserId(),                 method : 'clear',                 name : name             },             disableCaching : true,             success : function() {                 console.log('success');             },             failure : function() {                 console.log('failed', arguments);             }         });     } });

You can invoke this state provider by using the following syntax:

1 2 3 4 5 6

Ext.state.Manager.setProvider(    Ext.create('MyApp.util.JsonPStorageProvider', {      userId: [a user's login id],      url: [url to web service where state information will be stored/retrieved]    }) );

The state provider will transmit state information about stateful components to your designated webservice using the following URL variables:

userId=[user name or token]
method=clear | save | get
name= [variable name]
value=[url encoded value]

You simply need to create a webservice that stores and retrieves the name/value pairs, and you should be good-to-go.