When you think of javascript frameworks, you think Prototype, Mootools, JQuery or YUI. But hopefully, the web 2.0 world is moving and changing fast, and new players show up everyday. So now, when thinking javascript framework, you'll have to think Ext JS as well.

Ext JS is an open-source JavaScript library, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as AJAX, DHTML and DOM scripting. Its first particularity comes from its origin: it was built as an extension of YUI, and was later extended to jQuery and Prototype. Today, it's able to run stand-alone without relying on any of those external libraries, though they remain an option for integration.

The main feature of Ext JS is to allow developers to integrate a desktop-like experience in their web applications by providing a rich set of controls (or "widgets"), including (but not limited to) text fields, dialog boxes, textareas, date fields, pop-up date-picker, comboboxes, radio and checkboxes, html editor, data grid, tab and region panels, toolbars and window-style menus.

Needless to say, Ext JS outputs 100% XHTML-compliant code, is fully "stylable" with CSS, and provides an extensive documentation, a blog, a forum and numbers of tutorials. Finally, the complete library (including all the controls) weights only 70Kb (compressed), and can be extended thanks to themes and plugins written by the community.

Jack Slocum, the man behind Ext JS, also features numbers of nice things about its baby on his own blog, so make sure you stop by from time to time.

» Visit ExT JS website
» Download Ext JS
» Read the documentation
» Browse through the tutorials
» Get additional themes and plugins