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Ask HN: What is your favorite Javascript UI framework out there ?

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Ask HN: What is your favorite Javascript UI framework out there ?

#1

Post by olalonde »

I'm looking forward to build my next web app soon and this time, I thought I'd give a try to a fully featured JS UI library instead of reinventing the wheel. I haven't quite followed JS trends for a while, so I'd like to get some advice from this community.

So far, I'm considering:

- jQuery UI: has been there for a while, great community and tons of plugins but it's still very low level.

- ExtJS: great UI but smaller community and the dual license scares me (I'm not sure I can afford the commercial license yet).

- SproutCore: seems really great and love the UI, but writing all my back-end in JS kind of scares me.

- Cappuccino: same as above.

So, what JS UI framework do you like best ?

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite Javascript UI framework out there ?

#5

Post by samd »

Maybe you mean something different, but I'm pretty sure both SproutCore and Cappuccino don't demand your back-end be written in JavaScript, or any particular language.

Also, your framework choice is going to depend on what you want to do. SC/Capp are meant for building webapps, not websites.

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite Javascript UI framework out there ?

#6

Post by flavoie »

You can also take a look at qooxdoo. http://qooxdoo.org/

It's feature rich (more than cappuccino at this time), it has good documentation, it provides a nice unit test framework and it's easy to use.

One thing that worth noting, is that framework like capp/sproutcore/qooxdoo are design with all the widget in mind(not the case with jQuery). That provide a more coherent api, everything is test against each other, it's easier to build, maintain and update. But all of this at the expense of being a little bit bigger (kb).

One advantage of cappuccino is the GUI builder Atlas, but only if you're on a Mac and all your team members are on a Mac. There is no announcement yet if or when it will be available on Windows and Linux.

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite Javascript UI framework out there ?

#7

Post by wycats »

ExtJS has repeatedly claimed that their Open Source license does not apply to an application in which any part (including the backend) is proprietary. I don't personally agree that that's how the GPL works wrt JS, but if you can't afford the commercial license, be aware that the owners of the project don't think you can use the OSS license on a non-OSS app.

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite Javascript UI framework out there ?

#8

Post by plq »

Depends on your requirements. JQuery is great if your goal is also to maintain a progressive experience that somewhat works without javascript.

If you're after a feel closer to desktop apps, or a high level of interactivity, and also don't care much about users who don't sport a modern browser, I think the best library is Ext, both in terms of community size and widget features. But, qooxdoo would be a better choice among free alternatives, (i.e. Sproutcore and Cappuccino)

In a nutshell: In case of Sproutcore, I don't think Sproutcore's widget set is great. As for Cappuccino, I'm not sure about running code over an "Objective-j" layer on top of javascript, which is slow enough. And, I'm not a mac guy at all.

Qooxdoo has introduced some support for progressive pages as well, but it's nowhere near JQuery. I'm also maintaining a project called JsQt, that converts .ui files from Qt Designer to qooxdoo code. See http://to./3t6p to get a quick feeling of what works and what doesn't. So you also have a basic gui-designer support for qooxdoo as well.

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