Administration views in ExtJS or similar, including Grids, Forums, etc.

Our company develops a system that has a web view. Currently the views are all generated together with the content (outputting Tables, Forms, etc). We are migrating to an API driven system and need to port our modules over. Our idea is to include have a semi-desktop experience with use of ajax and other technologies such as ExtJS. We are leaning towards ExtJS despite licensing costs (which we would then bear when the system is put into production. We are not taking any responsability for developer licenses, etc, that is beyond the scope of this auction unless otherwise agreed later). Basically the system includes different data views, a couple more complicated which list several different data types (strings, status indicator images - such as green/red flag, etc, date, etc, etc)... Some data will need to be processed at the grid level to ease some server interactions. For example, the API will return a categories list with names and IDs, then when listing categories, the client-side grid must cross reference the category array from the previous API call. We would like this to be generated as much as possible automatically - although the more complex ones will obviously require some manual adjustments. (i.e. the server will generate the JS to "assemble" the grids based on what it will be sending. ## Deliverables Attached PDF shows current system layout and one attempt we made to utilize something similar to what we are looking for. We used the DHTMLx framework to make the grid but it was very labor-intenisve and not easy to "port" to different views we have... We need something which makes it easier to convert the existing views and create new ones. Some forms will also need to be custom made, as we will need to do some different treatment on some... Some examples regarding the data grids etc: So the idea for grid would be: We would specify - * Some sort of "field definition" which ties the below elements as well as settles dataypes for columns etc... * one or more "reference objects;arrays" (such as category, or username, for example) * One "data array" which includes the data to be presented, as well as the columns that reference the "reference objects" with ID example: Reference 1 - Cateories: `{` `"CATEGORIES": [` `{"ID": 1,` `"NAME": "CAT1"`},`{"ID": 2,` `"NAME": "CAT2"`} ] } Reference 2 - Users: `{` `"USERS": [` `{"ID": 1,` `"NAME": "John"`},`{"ID": 2,` `"NAME": "Mike"`} ] } Data: `{` `"Orders": [` `{"ID": 1,` `"USER": "1", "SOMEFIELD":"abcd", "CATEGORY":"2"`},`{"ID": 2,` `"USER": "2", "SOMEFIELD":"bla bla", "CATEGORY":"1"`} ] } This should give a result similar to this: | Name | Some Text | Cateogry | | John | abcd | CAT2 | | Mike | bla bla | CAT1 | you get the jist...(all/most tables need paging, sorting, filtering, ability to hide/show columns, possibility to re-order columns is a plus. There must also be a way to store this data as a serialized object, and this can be obtained back and forth from the server to remember the view settings of the user.) Some grids require export functionality to excel. I believe this can be achieved with extjs or similar. Certain items will have "read views" or "edit views" (this is to be defined from the column definition above, which will be generated by the server in whatever format we establish). these particular views should be "style-able" with CSS as we have designers that can alter and tinkle the layouts. We can present a "starting point" for you to work on. Once a form is submitted it will be submitted to our API, using GET or POST (most probably post), the API will then issue a standard acknowledgement or exception. if there is no OK status, an error should be presented to the user. Some field validation should occur but it will be simple. These forms may also contain some selectors for the same "reference objects" we spoke about above (such as a "category" pull down, with data indexed from the same array) - when submitting, only the main ID is used despite having pulled the name in the combo. The project should be delivered as a set of Javascript and HTML files which can be customized by us and used to create a "view-generator", or as a PHP script + JS files. The idea is to have the system "auto-generate" most of the views (about 15 or 20 different lists and edtiors - some used the referenced objects, some dont, categories, users, etc, etc) by generating the HTML/JS to assemble the grid and views etc.. The grids will then call the API from the client browser to populate it with data... With this changes to the layout will be much simpler and more centralized. The more complex views which require different field types etc will probably need to be custom coded but it will be only 2 or 3... The PHP class/function would take in all the arguments and output the required JS to be sent to the client browser to assemble the view. There will be no in-grid editing. The API can respond using JSON or XML for the same requests. JSON is preferred. The grid should have in-grid sorting and filtering, as well as an option for remote searches in some cases. In these cases the API will be called with the parameters to limit the filter and the results in the standard format will be sent back.