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Creating Sencha Touch Toolbar Buttons

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In this tutorial you will learn how to create different types of toolbar buttons using the Sencha Touch Library. The sample application you will write consists of a panel and a couple of toolbars. You will dock the first toolbar to the top of the panel and the second toolbar to the bottom, as portrayed in the picture below.

These are the tasks you will complete to build the application:

  • Create a webpage to host the application
  • Write the Ext.setup function
  • Create different types of toolbar buttons
  • Create a tap handler for the buttons
  • Create and configure the toolbars
  • Create a panel and dock the toolbars

Setting up your Sencha Touch application

In order to get started you need to create an HTML page to host your application.  This page will reference the Sencha Touch library and your own scripts:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <title></title>
     <link rel="stylesheet" href="ext/resources/css/ext-touch-debug.css" type="text/css"/>
     <script type="text/javascript" src="ext/ext-touch-debug-w-comments.js"> </script>
     <script type="text/javascript" src="js/toolbar-buttons-1.js"> </script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Now, let’s focus on the toolbar-buttons-1.js file.  The first step should be configuring the application’s icons and start-up screens.  You can do this inside the Ext.setup() function:

Ext.setup({
    tabletStartupScreen: 'tablet_startup.png',
    phoneStartupScreen: 'phone_startup.png',
    icon: 'icon.png',
    glossOnIcon: false
});

Ext.setup() is a native function that takes care of configuring your page so it looks great on different mobile platforms and devices.  It also hosts the onReady() function, which is where you will configure the application’s objects.

Creating different types of Sencha Touch toolbar buttons

Inside onReady(), your first assignment is to add a couple of arrays of button configurations.  These arrays contain the buttons for the top and bottom toolbars:

var buttonsSpecTop = [
    { ui: 'back', text: 'Back' },
    { xtype: 'spacer' },
    { ui: 'forward', text: 'Forward' }
]

var buttonsSpecBottom = [
    { ui: 'normal', text: 'Normal' },
    { ui: 'round', text: 'Round' },
    { ui: 'action', text: 'Action' },
    { ui: 'confirm', text: 'Confirm' }
]

Pay attention to the ui configuration option.  This option determines the look of the button.  If you examine the ui values in the code and the buttons in the screenshot, you will notice how each ui value corresponds to a different look and feel.

To see the buttons at work you can create a simple routine that will handle tap events:

var tapHandler = function (btn, evt) {
    alert("Button '" + btn.text + "' tapped.");
}

The buttons and tap handler are now ready and it’s time to create the toolbars. You can use an array to store both toolbars:

var dockedItems = [{
    xtype: 'toolbar',
    title: 'Buttons',
    ui: 'dark',
    dock: 'top',
    items: buttonsSpecTop,
    defaults: { handler: tapHandler }
}, {
    xtype: 'toolbar',
    ui: 'dark',
    dock: 'bottom',
    items: buttonsSpecBottom,
    defaults: { handler: tapHandler }
}]

Notice how each toolbar has an array of button configurations assigned to the items option, and the buttons’ tap handler is attached through the defaults configuration option.

Putting it all together

Finally, you can go ahead and create the panel that will serve as the main container for the application:

new Ext.Panel({
    id: 'buttonsPanel',
    fullscreen: true,
    dockedItems: dockedItems
});

The docketItems configuration option is used to specify one or more components to be added as docked items to the panel.  These components, commonly tool bars and tab bars, can be docked to the top, right, bottom or left of the panel.

It is possible to manipulate docked items using a number of functions.  You can use the addDocked() and removeDocked() functions to add or remove docked items, and onDockedAdd() or onDockedRemove() to perform actions upon addition or removal of docked items.  The getDockedItems() method returns an array of the currently docked components.

Here’s the complete source code:

Ext.setup({
    tabletStartupScreen: 'tablet_startup.png',
    phoneStartupScreen: 'phone_startup.png',
    icon: 'icon.png',
    glossOnIcon: false,
    onReady: function () {

        var buttonsSpecTop = [
            { ui: 'back', text: 'Back' },
            { xtype: 'spacer' },
            { ui: 'forward', text: 'Forward' }
        ]

        var buttonsSpecBottom = [
            { ui: 'normal', text: 'Normal' },
            { ui: 'round', text: 'Round' },
            { ui: 'action', text: 'Action' },
            { ui: 'confirm', text: 'Confirm' }
        ]

        var tapHandler = function (btn, evt) {
            alert("Button '" + btn.text + "' tapped.");
        }

        var dockedItems = [{
            xtype: 'toolbar',
            title: 'Buttons',
            ui: 'dark',
            dock: 'top',
            items: buttonsSpecTop,
            defaults: { handler: tapHandler }
        }, {
            xtype: 'toolbar',
            ui: 'dark',
            dock: 'bottom',
            items: buttonsSpecBottom,
            defaults: { handler: tapHandler }
        }]

        new Ext.Panel({
            id: 'buttonsPanel',
            fullscreen: true,
            dockedItems: dockedItems
        });
    }
});

There it is. I hope this tutorial helps you with your Sencha Touch projects.

Be mindful that the information I provide here is based on Sencha Touch 0.97 Public Beta.  You should expect to see differences with the first release of the library.

Tagged With: 15 Comments
About Jorge

Jorge is the author of Building a Sencha Touch Application and the Ext JS 3.0 Cookbook, and technical reviewer of Learning Ext JS and Pro jQuery Mobile. He runs a software development and developer education shop that focuses on mobile, web and desktop technologies.
If you'd like to work with Jorge, contact him at ramonj[AT]miamicoder.com.

Comments

  1. Gairon says:
    April 26, 2011 at 7:48 AM

    How to setup toolbar with
    dock : ‘right’
    and vertical orientation of buttons?

    Reply
  2. Ralf says:
    June 28, 2011 at 3:19 AM

    Great Tutorial:
    How can I make my notes on all Phone available?

    Reply
  3. Antonio says:
    September 22, 2011 at 6:17 AM

    One stupid question, how to add action on buttons?
    Example, have two panels, first have button “next”, and when I tap that button I want to show second panel.
    That second panel have button “back”, a when I tap back button I want to show first panel.

    Thanks.

    Reply
  4. Romy says:
    October 1, 2011 at 5:12 PM

    thanks, you rule!

    Reply
  5. Akash Saikia says:
    October 5, 2011 at 6:03 AM

    Wanted to ask the first question asked here

    “How to setup toolbar with
    dock : ‘right’
    and vertical orientation of buttons,icons …?”

    I am facing some problems with it as the items in the toolbar are shown horizontally.

    Thanks

    Reply
  6. Ajain says:
    October 25, 2011 at 7:36 AM

    Hi Jorge,

    I am facing a problem….how do we align the image … i hav an image in my login page…i need to align the image to right but by default its aligned to the left…..

    I hav tried the align:’right’ itseems it doesnt handle align attribute so later got 2 knw tht we need to use {xtype:spacer} even this didnt do my trick….

    how do i proceed abt it …..

    Thanks

    Reply
    • Jorge says:
      October 25, 2011 at 7:58 AM

      I’m not sure I understand your problem, but here’s a suggestion. If you’re using Sencha Touch 2 and let’s say you have a button, title and image setup in the toolbar, you can use these: button, spacer, label, spacer, and image.

      Reply
  7. Vivek says:
    November 5, 2011 at 11:23 AM

    Good Work Jorge:)
    is there any possibility to change the color of toolbar without using any cropped content….i hav tried
    style:”background-color:#232323;” but it doesnt work is there any alternate solution for it…

    Thanks

    Reply
  8. jb says:
    November 24, 2011 at 10:10 AM

    Thank you for this tutorial, just what i was looking for to begin with sencha touch !! I really appreciate and will read your other posts about sencha !

    Reply
  9. Ramesh says:
    February 4, 2012 at 2:23 AM

    hi!!!!!!!!!! iam new to sencha touch, Iam working on android, i am using sencha touch using phonegap in android, bt when i design the page in sencha touch its not appearing total form.
    example i want four buttons, its appearing 3 buttons only, how can i give scroll in sencha touch for buttons only.

    Reply
  10. Ramona says:
    April 13, 2012 at 2:47 AM

    hi, i am confused to realize a quick launch toolbar. the toolbar only can use button and spacer,how can i put a quick launch app icon on a toolbar.

    Reply

Trackbacks

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