I’m working on a Rails app that uses Ext JS for the frontend interface. The app runs fine but I’m having performance issues. The main problem is that the ext-all.js file is huge and takes forever to load on slower connections.
I already tried creating a custom Ext JS build to reduce the file size but it didn’t help much. The file is still way too big. I’m using Rails 2.x and thought about using the built-in caching features.
Regular JavaScript files cache properly without issues. However when I try to cache the Ext JS files, I run into JavaScript errors like Ext is not defined even though the files seem to load correctly.
I’ve been searching online for compression solutions and found several options but haven’t been able to get any of them working properly. Has anyone dealt with this before? I’m looking for ways to either compress the Ext JS files or enable gzip compression to make them load faster.
Any suggestions on how to fix this compression issue would be really helpful.
i’ve dealt with this extjs compression nightmare before. split ext-all.js into smaller chunks and load them async - that usually fixes it. also double-check your rails asset pipeline’s minification. it loves breaking extjs syntax. try swapping to yui compressor instead of whatever default you’re using.
hey, that Ext is not defined issue sounds frustrating! maybe double-check if the ext files load in the correct order when cached. rails can mess that up. and don’t forget to verify if gzip is actually turned on for your server! what’s your hosting like?
This usually happens because Rails asset concatenation breaks Ext JS dependency chains. I ran into the same thing with Rails 2.x - it’d minify files alphabetically instead of respecting dependencies. Try lazy loading your Ext JS components rather than dumping everything upfront. Also check if your web server’s actually gzipping JavaScript files - lots of default Apache setups skip .js files entirely. If you’re still stuck, just serve Ext JS from a CDN. They handle compression automatically and take load off your server. Honestly, the performance boost from CDN delivery usually beats any local optimization you can do, especially with heavy frameworks like Ext JS.