Feature: #76108 - Replace ExtJS category tree with D3 and SVG

See forge#76108

Description

The Backend ExtJS category tree (renderType selectTree) has been replaced with one based on D3.js and SVG. Tree implements a 'virtual scroll' pattern, meaning that it renders only as many nodes as fit in the viewport.

Additionally the tree now display icon overlay (e.g. for disabled categories).

Structure

There are three RequireJS modules:

  • SvgTree.js - this is a base JS object able to render a SVG based tree. It can expand and collapse child nodes, render icons for each node, and keep track of the select nodes.

  • SelectTree.js - extends the SvgTree object (prototype inheritance) with checkboxes

  • SvgTreeToolbar.js - toolbar for SvgTree which allows to search, collapse all and expand all tree nodes

Visual Scroll

SvgTree renders only as many nodes as fit in the wrapping container. This requires that the wrapping container has a fixed height set. So e.g. if one node takes 20px height, and the wrapper has 200px, only 10 nodes will be rendered at the time.

Data binding

Thanks to D3, each SVG node representing tree item is bound to the data object. The general idea is that all operations (like showing/hiding/selecting...) are first performed on the dataset, and then the view (SVG) is refreshed. In the initialize function SvgTree loads the whole tree as json

Impact

  • New tree is faster.

  • A new 'indeterminate' state for the category has been introduced introduced. The category is in the 'indeterminate' state if at last one of its descendants is selected (checked).

  • Tree data is not rendered inline in HTML any more but fetched via Ajax