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

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31–40 of 43 posts

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

#31

If you use Java it is a no-brainer: GWT. You can check out our app for an example: http://demo.teampostgresql.com . It is a fairly complex AJAX app written 99% in plain Java. GWT automatically compiles the source to JavaScript targeting different browsers. Awesome.

yeah java: java.lang.IllegalStateException: The HTML template 'index.jsp?getpublicresource=DatabaseExplorer_dialog.html' has not been loaded.

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

#32
post #31

If you use Java it is a no-brainer: GWT. You can check out our app for an example: http://demo.teampostgresql.com . It is a fairly complex AJAX app written 99% in plain Java. GWT automatically compiles the source to JavaScript targeting different browsers. Awesome.

yeah java: java.lang.IllegalStateException: The HTML template 'index.jsp?getpublicresource=DatabaseExplorer_dialog.html' has not been loaded.

Nasty. I haven't seen it before even though the app sees a fair amount of use. Do you have the complete stack trace? Any unusual browser / configuration?

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

#33
I've been using Dojo for a while. It has widgets with nearly the breadth of something like ExtJS, but is completely open-source. The documentation isn't all that great—thought it is improving—but the community is responsive and the code is well-written enough that it isn't difficult to figure out what the docs should say.

I don't know that I'd recommend it over jQuery if you don't need the widgets, but I don't have a lot of jQuery experience. The widgets were a big factor for us.

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

#34
post #8

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…

In cappuccino you compile the objective-j to javascript for release so the speed issue doesn't exist. It is a new syntax for most javscript devs though so that might be a turn off.

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

#35
post #34
post #8

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…

In cappuccino you compile the objective-j to javascript for release so the speed issue doesn't exist. It is a new syntax for most javscript devs though so that might be a turn off.

are you absolutely sure? here's an excerpt from their website:

""" Cappuccino was implemented using a new programming language called Objective-J, which is modelled after Objective-C and built entirely on top of JavaScript. Programs written in Objective-J are interpreted in the client, so no compilation or plugins are required. Objective-J is released alongside Cappuccino in this project and under the LGPL. """

http://cappuccino.org/learn/

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

#36

UkiJS ( http://ukijs.org/ ) is pretty nice too. I took a serious look at SproutCore and Cappuccino for a web app (not site) that I'm building, but jQuery is so damned easy to use, that it was not easy to justify spending a few days learning yet another framework. The thing that made me totally drop any further investigation into SproutCore and Cappuccino (and UkiJS, for that matter) was the JQuery layout plugin ( htt…

Thanks for the pointer to jQuery Layout! It looks very similar to extJS' layouts.

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

#37

No mention of YUI yet? I have been using it for years and can't imagine using any other framework. YUI can be somewhat low level, but YUI 2 has grown to provide many impressive components like layout manager, menus, data tables, rich text editors, tree views, tab views, and more. Not to mention one of my favorite parts of YUI, the CSS font and reset files. YUI 3 is much more reminiscent of jQuery, but doesn't quite h…

I'll also cast a vote for YUI. Caveat - I'm a product manager and not a developer, and the eng team chose YUI on it's own. It really worked out well for the product - we were able to put out some really impressive features using YUI data tables and some light use of other things as well.

Basically, a lot of business app development is taking data from the database and making a table from which users can edit info or add new rows. All of the stuff that you need for that is in YUI - inline cell editing, tabs, hiding columns and picking them, and formatting data. The performance is excellent as well - the data table performed really well even if there were hundreds of rows.

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

#39
post #21
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the OP is asking for UI frameworks I assume you're both referring to JQueryUI. A UI framework is only as good as the widgets it ships with and looks to me like JQueryUI is a bit light on in this regard. Certainly a good framework for adding a few simple UI elements like accordions etc. Not as useful for projects requiring more complex elements like grids, treeviews, layout managers etc.

>A UI framework is only as good as the widgets it ships with Completely wrong. A UI framework is only as good as the widgets it lets you build , and how much it helps you while building them. I have never yet worked on a project where I could piece together all the widgets from one library that perfectly fit every use case. jQuery UI made a few smart decisions in how to build their API. They kept it extremely jQuery-…

of course it goes without saying that a framework should have an extension mechanism that allows you to build custom widgets (and Ext does). It's also nice when you don't have to build a treeview or grid with pagination and sorting and editing etc.etc. Personally I like being able to plug and play someone else's code - There's nothing more wasteful than reinventing the wheel.

There's a good reason people build UIs that mimic desktop applications - it's because a user should be able to sit down at an unfamiliar application and know instantly what each widget does - you don't get that when each app reinvents UI elements to create interesting stuff hehe

Obviously no one is comparing JQueryUI with ExtJS - that would be apples to oranges.

JQueryUI is light and designed for enhancing web pages

ExtJS is a ~600kb framework designed for web applications.

Both are designed for different use cases.

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

#40
post #35
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In cappuccino you compile the objective-j to javascript for release so the speed issue doesn't exist. It is a new syntax for most javscript devs though so that might be a turn off.

are you absolutely sure? here's an excerpt from their website: """ Cappuccino was implemented using a new programming language called Objective-J, which is modelled after Objective-C and built entirely on top of JavaScript. Programs written in Objective-J are interpreted in the client, so no compilation or plugins are required. Objective-J is released alongside Cappuccino in this project and under the LGPL. """ http:…

I'm developing an objective-j app right now and they have compile targets that compile directly to minified javascript. It will work without compiling but for a production I wouldn't recommend it for bandwidth reasons alone. Technically they are right the javascript is still interpreted in the client and you don't need any browser plugins to run it. It's not strictly objective-j source code your are running in a production build so there aren't too interpreter passes.

The Debug build targets don't compile to javascript though so there are two interpreter passes in that case. That is fairly speedy and I don't notice an insane startup difference.

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