JavaScript frameworks and web development - javascript-framework

I am a beginner in javascript.I started fixing some bugs in JavaScript and started digging to learn more.
In my application , there is an applet which displays dynamic info. We try to display a network graph (imagine something like GoogleMap ) .
Now the problem statement is ,
If i want to achieve rich advanced UI features and decide to throw away the applet code, which javascript framework i shud go for ?
It s a dynamic data we try to display , so what do you recommend for a very rich GUI development ?
I am a novice to web development and have no idea of the technologies involved and there usage.
So please do let me know your suggestions in detail.
regards

Everyone needs to know jQuery and its plugins.

Related

Is Adobe Air/Flash the easiest framework for advanced GUI development?

Excuse a non-developer being forced to develop applications instead of administrating networks like I'm used to. This is a horrible post in many ways.
I'm developing an application which has reached the point of needing a GUI. However, I haven't done any GUI development ever before, so I feel the need to ask for help on this.
The application is your standard data collecting/management app, with all common widgets and stuff that every application is using. The problem is that I need the application to be able to display websites using an external browser of some sort, to pass a captcha on the site the application works against. The website guys haven't given me permission to circumvent the captcha in any way.
I know of GTK, QT, Tcl/Tk etc. None of these frameworks have struck me as easy to use. To be honest, I'd like to design the interface using drag-and-drop like I used to do in VB6 when I was a kid, although I get chills thinking about writing this thing in Basic.
I was thinking about Adobe Air, and to design the application in Flash/ActionScript. From what I've learned about Air, I should be able to do everything I want to do. And I do believe it has built in sqlite, right? Would it be considered more "simple" to develop the actual GUI using Flash than using one of the traditional frameworks? What pitfalls am I facing?
A few guidelines:
It only needs to run on Windows
I need to be able to work against a database. Currently using SQLite3.
Some sort of browser integration is crucial. A browser window of some sort needs to open up inside my interface, be directed by the application, and the application needs to be able to read some data from the site that is being used.
Any help with this would be great. This is a clear case where I have to rely on the experience of others to complete the project at all. I'm happy to provide more information if you need that to make a suggestion.
You can always try Titanium Framework, it was aquired by Appcelerator nor so much ago. http://www.appcelerator.com/
It actually puts a webkit browser in a window, so if you can design HTML and CSS you can use this framework.

Capuccino alternative with a comparable looking UI?

I'm looking for a set of Javascript based UI components for a web app I'm building and have found that many of the best looking web apps were built with the Capuccino framework; see http://www.getflow.com/, http://www.picsengine.com/home/ and http://timetableapp.com/ for examples.
However, I'm not a Cocoa developer and have no interest in learning Objective-J. Ideally, I'd find a set of components that provide the visual end result of Capuccino apps without the underlying weight of the framework.
I have seen the Aristo jQuery UI them (http://taitems.tumblr.com/post/482577430/introducing-aristo-a-jquery-ui-theme), but jQuery UI just doesn't seem to have the depth of components available in Capuccino.
I realize this may be a long shot, but I figured it can't hurt to ask. :)
Thanks.
As another option, there is jQuery UI: nice if you are already familiar with jQuery, with the plus side of not being too heavyweight, but may not have all the components you need pre-defined. A nice thing is that it encourages to write the HTML in a way that degrades gracefully when your application in older browsers.
Maybe sproutcore is an alternative for you, although it requires you to hand-code everything in javascript from scratch. It offers most basic components and is easily adjustable to your personal design goals. Sproutcore is used in Apples Mobile Me and in some other big projects.
Another possibility might by vaadin which offers a rich set of prebuild controls and is based on Googles GWT javascript compiler. But it only makes sense if you are developing in a java environment.

Asp.net with ajax vs. Silverlight (or.. learn ajax or Ssilverlight)

I already know Asp.net and C#. I want to build web site, and I need to choose between learning Silverlight or learning Ajax.
The site will be (visual) with nice tables and a little graphics, and with hard work with db.
My question is what is the recommended way for me, and the reasons.
Thank u and sorry for my English.
Microsoft's current position would indicate that you should go with Asp.Net + HTML + CSS + jQuery (I would use MVC as it gives you much better control as to what gets rendered in the page, but that's just a recommendation).
http://mashable.com/2010/10/29/microsoft-silverlgiht-html/
Even if we ignore all the news regarding this shift from SilverLight to what's commonly being called "HTML5", learning & using jQuery + HTML + CSS has several advantages:
From a personal standpoint, all the knowledge you'll get will be useful for C# and for any other languages you need to use in the future for developing web apps.
Using Silverlight (or flash) you are basically telling search engines to ignore you. Ok, maybe it's not so radical, but you'll have a hard time trying to make your page climb positions in Google & Bing, if you intend to do so.
Silverlight makes you depend on a browser plugin. Your page won't work in any OS or browser that doesn't have the plugin installed.
You'll find much more information and documentation for jQuery + HTML than for Silverlight, as jQuery is used not only with C#, but also with PHP, Java...
As a benefit of using Silverlight, however, you will gain the ability to stream DRM'd content (it's actually Silverlight's and Flash's main strength right now). How useful that will be to you, I don't know.
The question promotes somewhat subjective answers, so please understand that the answers will vary from person to person.
I would prefer AJAX in this instance. If you need to do a lot of animation then silverlight is probably your best bet. However, if you're looking just to display tabular data (with some graphics), the most commonly used approach (by my observation) is to use AJAX to populate tabular data.
The most common use I see for Silverlight these days is media streaming and proof of concepts.

most appropriate decision for dynamic web content

First of all, I'm sorry because of this lame question. But I'm kind of lost in all dynamic-html, ajax, etc stuff. So i decided get help from the pros.
Basically what I'm trying to do is creating a web page which have dynamic content(messages) coming from a web server(asp.net or php) presented in floating(movable by viewer) boxes in the page. And those boxes will be created dynamically upon a trigger from the server. And the viewer should be able to draw lines between those boxes to connect them(this information will also be sent/received to/from the server). Now which technologies should i use to have this? Is a combination of ajax+html5+jscript enough for this? Or do i need libraries like Yahoo's YUI, Google's GWT, etc.? Or, is flash/silverlight the best solution? Or something else?
Thanks
I'm no pro but I'd go for the HTML+JS+CSS version. As for the libraries, they'll help you in getting your content accross the many browsers and provide you with some nice utilities ;)
You don't need frameworks to do any of this. They might make the job easier, but, ultimately, they'll produce HTML and Javascript that make use of AJAX to get the job done.
Sounds like a big job, so be sure consider appropriate server-side and Javascript frameworks, and good luck.
You first have to decide between HTML5/JS/CSS, Flash and Silverlight for your client technology. Consider the client machines you need to support (Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad etc.)
You then pick your server-side language/platform. AJAX is your communication medium.
If you're going with HTML5/JS/CSS you'd like to pick a JS framework to speed up development. jQuery makes for quick coding. Other frameworks may have more features but are more abstracted from plain JS. You might want to use GWT if you're more familiar with Java than Javascript.

Are there any good drag&drop web app IDEs out there that support AJAX?

Can anyone recommend a GUI builder tool for creating DHTML web apps using AJAX to communicate with a web service backend? I'd like to avoid having to mess around with designing HTML, marshalling/unmarshalling data, checking for browser compatibility, etc. The tool should have a library of widgets that can be put into an application and hooked up to functionality, and be extensible enough to be able to define custom widgets. Of course free and/or open source is preferrable but I would consider proprietary tools too.
Also to what extent does the choice of GUI tool affect what platform or language I would use for the backend? If the GUI is just calling a web service then I should be able to use anything on the server-side to provide that interface but maybe some gui-side tools use a proprietary data exchange format that requires some specific server-side code?
Edit: I don't need a widget that can be dragged, I want an IDE that allows one to build a gui easily (i.e. a RAD tool).
WaveMaker is open source, runs on J2EE.
If you're comfortable with Java, maybe you could try Google Web Toolkit? http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/
I'm using Wavemaker and it does exactly what are u asking...
It is really easy to use and very perfomant....
I believe Dreamweaver does some of this, but in my opinion such editors are not a good idea. They produce horrible, unmaintainable server-side code and are quite inflexible.
Wavemaker beats everything else I have used hands down. Applications can be developed rapidly, has drag and drop, can connect to any web service, and has unmatched database management tools. The only problem with it is that it has kept changing hands/ownership so much and its future direction is not clear.
Delphi for PHP from Codegear has some of this capability, but I would agree with ceejayoz that such tools don't necessarily make for nice code.
On Dan's suggestion I took a look at GWT. I'd heard of it before but never looked at it that closely and it seems pretty interesting. Certainly it takes away the annoyance of pixel pushing and making things work in multiple browsers. I also tried searching for "gwt rad tools" and came up with a couple of results:
Instantiations GWT Designer (commercial, $59/year)
Wirelexsoft Vistafei (still in beta but will have a free and a commercial version)
I'll take a look at these but if anyone's used something else let me know.

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