sencha-logoSencha recently released some nice enhancements to Sencha Fiddle, a browser-based sandbox for experimenting with the Ext JS and Sencha Touch frameworks (see my previous post about the features). The best way to learn about the new features is to experience them for yourself, but here’s a quick run-down of some of the more interesting changes:

Bug Fixes

A few of the more show-stopping bugs have been fixed, including:

  • You can now search for your own fiddles by author (e.g.,ย author:existdissolve)
  • Creating “data” tabs now successfully save as a part of the fiddle
  • Some “un-indexed” fiddles are now back into the search results

Major Enhancements

New Look

If this is your first time visiting Sencha Fiddle in a while, you’ll notice that it’s gotten a significant face-lift. Gone is the bluey-blueness of the Neptune theme, and in its place is the new-ish “Charcoal” theme. It’s still distinctively “Neptune” in the aesthetic, but the contrast of the lime and charcoal are much more tolerable, IMO, than the unrelenting blue of stock Neptune ๐Ÿ™‚

Sharing Options

Originally, Sencha Fiddle beta offered sharing for Twitter and Facebook. This has now been expanded to include Google+. Hooray!

Additionally, you can now also grab an embed snipped for using on websites (see example below), and even open the fiddle in a new browser tab without all the Fiddle chrome to get in your way.

Embed Example:

<iframe src="https://fiddle.sencha.com/fiddle/2d?height=400" height="400" width="620"></iframe>

 

Fiddle Organization

Probably the biggest enhancement is in the way fiddles can be organized. Before, the structure was basically like jsFiddle, with a spot for JS, CSS, HTML and the addition of “data” tabs.

In 1.0.0 RC, this has been completely revamped. In Fiddle Resources, you can create an arbitrary structure of content, including folders, subfolders, internal and external files, and even segregated mock data resources. As you can see in the screenshot below, this could allow you to build an entirely Ext JS/Touch MVC app within an individual fiddle if you really wanted to.

fiddle

Wrapping Up

That’s it. It’s exciting to see that Sencha is working on this as hard as they are…I know it’s something I’ve wanted for a very long time, and now that it’s here, it’s great to see it evolve. What’s even greater, though, is that the devs are very open to suggestions, and extremely quick in their turnaround on tweaks, bug fixes, etc (thanks Mitchell!). If you haven’t already, head over to the Sencha Fiddle forum and make your voice heard about features you’d like to see.