Your choice of cross-browser javascript GUI [closed]

Answer 1

On the contrary I find qooxdoo syntax and code organization very clear. It is much like swing or gtk. I have tried Dojo as well, without much success. My no.1 choice for RIAs is qooxdoo. It is rich, coder-friendly, free and well documented.

My choice for any other (browser based) JavaScript work is jQuery. Although other libraries (prototype, mochikit etc) are all useful, jQuery is the hype now. Having an active (and big) community counts.

Answer 2

Dojo CON, IMHO is the appalling state of the documentation. Most is out-of-date, will often tell you features don't work which have since been corrected, of fail to alert you that features don't work.

I'm having to use it on a real-world project, learning as I fly, and it truly is a nightmare.

Answer 3

A lot of people on StackOverflow use jQuery, so answers will likely be biased in that direction. Additionally, jQuery will ship with ASP.Net MVC, making it the natural choice for developers using the Microsoft platform.

Answer 4

Dojo pros are IMO the following: 1. Provides a simple DOM query functionality, like jQuery, ex:

dojo.query(".disableAble").style("backgroundColor","gray");

2. Have really smart loader, which can pull in all classes at once, incrementally or at your own choosing. Also correlates with the build system where you pick your menu and compress, inline, et.c.

3. In my opinion the most important thing; A full client-side hierarchical widget system that is super-easy to extend, with support for DTL client side templates. Forces you to modularize your code and utilizes Dojo's own build and load system for custom widgets as well.

4. Almost all things that people write for Dojo become part of the 'official' build, under the dojox (experimental) folder. Many other toolkits have a lot of variants of the same widget making it hard for users to choose the right one.

Cheers, PS http://unclescript.blogspot.com

Answer 5

Rialto (Rich Internet Application Toolkit) is ajax-based cross browser javascript widgets library. Because it is technology agnostic it can be encapsulated in JSP, JSF, .Net, Python or PHP graphic components. The purpose of Rialto is to ease the access to rich internet application development to corporate developers. Ideally a Rialto developer have neither need to write or understand DHTML, Ajax or DOM code.

The target of Rialto is corporate web applications and not internet web sites.

Answer 6

When considering a JavaScript library/framework for usage you should first define on your goals. I used to separate all JavaScript libraries/frameworks into three categories by their purpose and architecture:

1. I want to pimp up my page with some really "cool" features. Go for JavaScript library.

   • jQuery
   • ZenoUI
   • old: Prototype, Mootools

2. I want to build an application with a rich front-end. I like defining UI with JavaScript and I do not mind much using custom APIs of these libraries for coding my application logic. Go for JavaScript post-library/pre-framework.

   • extjs
   • kendo
   • DHTMLX
   • Dojo
   • YUI
   • Qooxdoo
   • jQuery UI
   • Bindows - generates the exact look of Windows
   • Spry (raw, suffers severely of memory leaks)

3. I want to build an application with a rich front-end. I like defining UI in XML and I would like to code my application logic against standard APIs and make use of other developer-facing standard-based technologies. Go for JavaScript framework.

   • Sproutcore
   • Backbase
   • Ample SDK

For a more detailed comparison, see the alternatives to ExtJS.