Which clientside framework / library do you like?

[Mr5o1]

Hi All,

I've been working on a large web application for a few months. At this point the backend/serverside is pretty much good to go, and the app can be used via a set of html forms. Its always been my intention to bring it to this point, and then write a single page interface to manipulate the backend via ajax.

It's not easy to decide which framework / library to use for the frontend/clientside. I'm pretty comfortable with jquery but I dont think its right for this job. Whichever I choose will involve some investment of time getting up to speed. So I just wondered what frameworks other's have used & recommend?

Features important to me:

complete set of widgets (datepicker, autocomplete, and tableview are a must)
complete documentation, reasonably active community (surprisingly, some have very little)
browser abstraction (cross-compatibility issues should be taken care of by the framework)
nicely formatted code (jquery is ugly.. but bearable - some are much worse)


Jquery (http://jquery.com/)
-more for jazzing up a webpage than writing an app... you'd end up writing a LOT of boilerplate in order to create a single page interface
-excellent documentation, large community, good set of widgets (jqueryui), reasonable abstraction
-ugly code.. but bearable

GWT (http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/)
-good documentation, community, widgets
-fairly dogmatic framework, includes serverside code
-nicely formatted code
-pretty much stuck with eclipse IDE
-most apps built with GWT look like a google app

JavaFX (http://javafx.com/)
-good documentation, community
-nice organisational guidlines (framework) provided by netbeans, not too much dogma
-widgets.. they're there, but a table container is oh so conspicuously missing (to be included JavaFX 2.0) for now you have to import a swing table or some such.
-nicely formatted code
-netbeans IDE (always seems problematic in KDE)
-the "unsigned code" warnings are problematic - I think they actually make an end user feel less secure, whereas other frameworks just dont warn you about the problem.
-seem to take the longest to load.

Cappuccino (http://cappuccino.org/)
-generate's great looking apps - they really are stunning see 280 slides (http://280slides.com/)
-excellent browser abstraction
-documentation is complete but little more than a list of classes & methods, community all but non-existant
-ugly code, an abomination in fact
-reasonable set of widgets, no datepicker.

Sproutcore (http://www.sproutcore.com/)
-poor & incomplete documentation
-limited community

Thanks for your thoughts all!

[Jason]

Based on your needs I would say that jQuery, Dojo and YUI are all up to job.

With my experience I use jQuery for DOM heavy work, this is what it excels at. If the project requires less focus on the DOM then I will use MooTools.