Fresh Apollo HTML based Aggregator uses Ext JS Library

One of the sample apps that we have made available from the Apollo labs site, is an RSS aggregator built entirely in HTML / JavaScript and CSS named Fresh. This is a pretty cool application, and really demonstrates how you can use HTML in Apollo to build desktop applications.

We have been showing this a lot over the past couple of days (at Apollo Camp and webDU), and have been incorrectly saying that the Yahoo UI library was used to create the app. This is incorrect, and was a mistake on the speakers (mostly my) part. It actually is built using the Ext JS JavaScript Library and Components toolkit.

What is Ext JS? From their website:

Ext began life as an extension to the Yahoo! User Interface Javascript library. However, it quickly exploded into a full-fledged framework of its own, and was soon launched as a separate, independent library. Ext is one of the most powerful, most expressive and easiest-to-use Javascript frameworks available today.

Basically, if you want to build Apollo applications using HTML / JavaScript, then this is the library you should start with. Not only does it provide lower level JavaScript functionality, it also provides a complete UI component toolkit, and effect library.

You can find more information on Ext JS here.

If you end up making an Apollo application that uses it, make sure to post in the comments.