We are going to be producing a RIA that will also be available using Adobe AIR for database management and manipulation with a php back end.
In an effort to speed up development we have decided on using YUI or EXT JS.
It appears that EXT JS out of the box will produce a better looking application than YUI but being essentially 100% JS I can foresee the application being much slower on any computers that aren't...say...up to date.
I am looking for any benchmarks comparing the two frameworks for UI & AJAX operations or any input about the speed of real world RIA applications using either framework.
Thanks for your help.
EDIT So is the general consensus that for a RIA where speed of use is a primary concern YUI is the better option? Or is it essentially, either will work?
EDIT EDIT We decided to go with YUI2 thanks for your help!
Don't fall into the trap of premature optimization. If only a small percentage of your users will be using "older" browsers, they will just have to deal with the slowness of any modern js framework - whether you choose YUI or Ext JS. Choose based on features and ease of development and applicability to your project.
When it comes to library size and speed of download to the browser - whichever library you choose, it can be customized to only include the components you need. And in production, you'll be minimizing and compressing it, so I think library size is really NOT a good measuring stick for making these types of decisions.
I posted a topic at the Ext JS forum years ago asking why the Ext Js doesn't come in packages and we are forced to use the kitchen-sink (almost). Their answer was "Ext JS is for RIAS".
I don't know what this tells you but in terms of size Ext JS is "big enough". I would recommend it for intranet apps. If you are to use it for public sites use all optimization techniques available to achieve fast loading times, compression, etc.
I also used YUI for intranet applications and i can tell you that it was lighter since not all packages where required.
We used to work with a gwt wrapper for ExtJs (gwt-ext). We developed a lot of modules with that. At some point we experienced some slow performance, specially with grid when the data was huge. In addition some memory leak with IE. But after they changed their licence policy, we started looking to other options. Perhaps some of those problems are fixed now.
Any way, now we are developing with OpenLaszlo.
I hope it helps you
If you're thinking of using Ext JS be aware that the current version (4.0.XX) has been found to be significantly slower than version 3.4, see http://www.sencha.com/forum/showthread.php?140180.
I've used YUI. It's fast. The newest library is highly modularized, so you only load modules you need. Also you can refer libraries from publicly available hosting services provided by Yahoo; it offers CDN for free.
I've worked with YUI data tables (data grids) with over 4,000 records and it still performed at an acceptable level.
Related
I was wondering what the difference is between ColdFusion's built-in AJAX functionality and using a JS framework like JQuery?
It seems that ColdFusion ships with tags that can do fancy Javascript layouts and controls e.g.<cflayout> and <cfwindow>. If it can already do this then why would one want to look at JQuery?
I'm asking this question because I have been given the task of making an internal CRM application which should have a 'rich' UI. I started investigating JQuery and ExtJS which do the fancy client-side UI work. However I also noticed that CF has similar abilities. Because I am starting from ground zero I was wondering whether to spend (a lot of) time learning JQuery or ExtJS, or cut down on my development time and just use CF's built in AJAX tools.
With some good design skills, would it not be possible to create a 'rich' application with CF's built-in AJAX controls and some fancy CSS styles?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Some things to consider:
Yes, you could use CF's built-in Ajax/UI stuff to build a nice application. The downside is that doing anything outside the box of what CF has baked in is a big headache., Plus, the version of Ext JS which CF has is quite old...so getting all the goodness from the latest version (v.4.2+) is not an option, since CF doesn't have a mechanism for upgrading that library seamlessly (or freely).
As others have mentioned, you should definitely use a non-CF alternative--they are all dead-simple to integrate with CF-backend anyway, so the amount of effort required to do that vs. wrestling with tweaking the internal CF stuff is actually lesser.
Which library to use? Well, you need to seriously consider your options before jumping into one or the other. jQuery (and jQuery UI) and Bootstrap are nice for design...unlike Ext JS, however, they don't come baked in with uber-rich "data-aware" components (grids, trees, etc). They are more libraries than they are frameworks (like Ext JS). On the other hand, Ext JS, for your purposes, will not be free. Unless you plan on open-sourcing your "internal" CRM codebase, you'll likely have to commercially license the software, which is on a per-developer seat basis. I think it's well worth the cost, considering what you get, but that will have to be part of your organization's calculation if you decide to go that route.
Personally, I don't recommend using CF's Ajax functionality. I've build internal tools using ColdFusion's built in javascript and they run very slow to say the least. Your best bet is to go with JQuery and Bootstrap. This could be a bit more difficult at first, but it would open a lot of doors down the road.
Good luck! Al
So I have this project I'm working on and I'm trying to build the website part of my project. I have experience with Flash AS3, but not so much or none with JavaScript. My co-workers are telling me that they are almost the same and you can just build the site in JavaScript. But people can have JavaScript turned off, and not everyone uses Flash.
I'm having difficulty knowing what to use to build my website...by the way, this website is generally an application. It's going to have a menu with features and stuff. I figured I can probably do HTML and PHP, but there's some features I need that will be dynamic. I really want this site to be available to as many people as possible.
The only reason (again) why I would use flash is because I've used it before and it's easy to design with animations and junk.
I could use some advice.
This is my personal opinion, but if you can meet the needs of your application with HTML and Javascript, you will probably be much better off. Your application will not require Flash, will likely load faster, will work better on mobile devices and will work on iDevices which do not support Flash at all.
That said, there are some challenges to building some types of applications in HTML and Javascript, particularly if you need to work across a wide range of browsers. Using a popular library like jQuery or YUI can help with a lot of that cross browser compatibility, but some capabilities are only available in the more modern browsers.
On the opposite end of things, some things can be done better in Flash than in HTML (particularly in old browsers).
So ... the answer is that, it depends on the needs of your application. If it were me, I'd build it in HTML and Javascript unless I found a reason that I couldn't make a successful application that way.
As for computers with Javascript off, it's my opinion that those computers are not doing modern things on the web anyway and would not likely be customers of anything I'd build on the web. Google has dropped support for computers without javascript and some old browsers from some of their apps because the cost of development for those cases is way higher than the benefit from the few customers you might gain by it. Whether that logic applies to your application obviously depends upon what you're doing and who it would appeal to.
If you looking to use javascript, there is jquery which is very easy to use and very rich in functioanlity. There is also extjs which is also easy and functionality rich but its not free for commercial use.
If you are new to javascript and already know java, you can use Google web toolkit where you write the code in java and the toolkit compiles that into a javascript. But this depends on how much server functionality you have.
IF the website is a simple one, you can probably use jquery, html and css.
If its a commercial project I would use Flash because You're good at it and You will build the app faster.
If You want to take a fascinating journey with the most popular language and develop Your skills then use javascript.
Flash and javascript are both very popular. For both methods You can use a fallback if the technology is not available.
If You decide to use javascript consider using backbone.js. It's a great MVC library.
Disclaimer & Long Winding Question Approaching
I know topics like this have been beaten to death here so suffice to say I'm not asking about which framework is better, I don't really care about opinions on the better framework. They all do pretty amazing things.
The Question
Given that I have an existing web application, made of mostly regular HTML+CSS (jQuery where needed), which is the optimal framework to integrate a few "rich" pages into typically a regular stream of HTML.
Reason
I am trying to bring our proven application into the realm of awesome desktop like UI but I want to do it one small piece, one screen at time. But for our users, support personel and especially me taking it slow is the only option.
Also, with our branding requirements having a framework that just takes over the viewport isn't an option, it has to play nice with other HTML on the screen.
Imagine the example being a rich user manager in an otherwise plain HTML+CSS environment.
Experience Thus Far
Dojo + Dijit
Pros: The new 1.5 widgets plus the claro theme is the cure for what ails us. Dojo seems to be able to use markup to create the UI which is very appealing and has a fair amount of widgets.
Cons: Holy bloated lib Batman! Dojo seems to be enormous and I have to learn a custom build system to get it to stop requesting 4,800 javascript files. This complex empire of Javascript makes me believe I won't be able to create much that isn't already there.
ExtJS
Pros: Amazing set of widgets, does everything we could possibly want. Seems quick, every version brings new improvements.
Cons: I'm not sure how to use this without the entire display being EXT. I'm still building a web site, so I would prefer something that could integrate into what we already have. Some pointers here would be great.
YUI
Pros: Well, it's Yahoo isn't it? AWS console is downright wicked. Plenty of support and a giant community.
Cons: Well, it's Yahoo isn't it? AWS console is the only wicked thing. Complex for someone who's used to jQuery.
Help Me
I am willing to accept experience, links to ways to solve problems I've outlined, new toolkits (even though I'm pretty sure I've seen most by now) or even just advice.
Regarding ExtJS, it's pretty easy to start it in an existing div with something like this:
Ext.onReady(function() {
App = new Ext.Panel({...})
App.render('div-id')
});
The App panel can then have it's own layout manager.
This might be useful if you're familiar with jQuery, but not yet familiar with YUI 3 syntax: http://www.jsrosettastone.com/
Each of the libs you listed is excellent. When embarking on a larger scale project, the quality of a lib's documentation, community, and commitment to support become more relevant.
With Dojo, keep in mind that outside of dojo base, it only ever loads what you tell it to. But yes, without a built layer, that means it could easily end up requesting 50 JS files at startup for a large application using a bunch of widgets.
There are several pages in the reference guide documenting the build script: http://www.dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/build/index.html
Rebecca Murphey wrote a nice blog post outlining an example app and build profile that you might find illuminative: http://blog.rebeccamurphey.com/scaffolding-a-buildable-dojo-application
If you get stuck, there's likely to be people in the Dojo IRC channel that can help.
RE ExtJS: I'm not sure what your exact situation is, but keep in mind that if you're intending to use it in commercial non-open-source software, you need to pay for licenses: http://www.sencha.com/store/js/
I'm a little curious as to why you think the size / number of requests is specifically an issue with Dojo though. I haven't used the others, but I'd expect it to be somewhat of a potential concern with any of them.
Browsing the Internet, I found the new Ample SDK JavaScript framework. From their about section:
Ample SDK is a standard-based cross-browser JavaScript GUI Framework for building Rich Internet Applications. It employs XML technologies (such as XUL, SVG or HTML5) for UI layout, CSS for UI style and JavaScript for application logic. It equalizes browsers and brings technologies support to those missing any.
Examples from their website look very promising.
Did anybody try using this framework in real projects? Which are the pros and cons of working with Ample SDK?
I'm mainly interested in your subjective real usage experience, and not in the information already available at their web-site.
Another very subjective opinion from the creator of Ample SDK ;)
Pros:
Standard technologies and APIs make it simpler to take off
Markup-based UI is easy to create and maintain
Good separation of concerns - UI, Logic and Style
Easy to create new UI elements and entire languages
Non-obtrusive - only takes over designated areas on the HTML page
Cons:
Does not aid well development of web-sites (for which jQuery is just enough), it is mainly suitable for client-side apps that run in browser and communicate only data with server.
We've used Ample in one of the components of our Enterprise Application.
Advantages we've experienced:
Programming against well established API's (DOM, Dom Events) led to better code readability, more stable implementation of the end product, no programming against specific browsers.
The development cycle was also reduced by up to 50% of our normal development time.
The ability to create custom namespaces for component markup helped us to created a library of common UIComponents that can easily be changed,modified and used in all our future products
The separation of the concerns of the UIComponents and the Application by creating a custom language itself is one of the big advantages. We now only focus on implementing the business logic instead of skinning components and fixing view related problems. The Q&A cycles we're also much shorter than normally because of the stability of the end product
Disadvantages.
Hardly any. the framework is really stable and so far we did not ran into any problems with Ample.
I used in one project for the moment: http://www.programma.tv/.
As for that experience, I did not use any "UI language" (except XHTML, of course) from the A-SDK, just the core. Also I wrote custom UI language ("channels", "days", "items" and some more elements) and that was really simple in case you know javascript well.
But: think twice before implementing your own UI language (i.e. custom components) - maybe it'll be faster use something from the A-SDK?
Anyway, if you'll ask me to choose one word to summarise my opinion, I'd choose this one: "SIMPLE".
I am going to start a new application which mainly consist NavigationPane, Grid, Toolbar. Layout should look like this demo page http://www.gwt-ext.com/demo/
I am quite confused which one to use in terms of writing less code, more performant, etc..
Could someone tell the pros and cons of all these technologies.
All the while I coded in javascript, so that way ExtJs seems to be the easy one for me to code. But I am curios to try GWT Ext, Is it true that it could do a lot just by writing few lines of java code.
For eg: To achieve the layout ( given in above gwt ext demo url), which one should I opt ExtJs or GWT Ext.
I read SmartGWT is relatively slower than GwtEXT. Does it have any advantage over GWT EXT. I am also looking for hibernate based data modules ( as my application is going to have many database calls). Anyone of SmartGWT or GWTExt has support for such modules. I came to know that smartgwt doesn't offer all of smartclient enterprise version functionalities, that we are allowed only a few of smartclient features. Will it be an issue?
Your response is highly appreciated.
The GWT-Ext main page now says
"GWT-Ext is no longer under active development and has been superseded by Smart GWT. Assistance will be provided to existing users of GWT-Ext looking to migrate to Smart GWT."
so why would anyone use it?
To write the least code, use SmartGWT Pro. It provides a wizard that allows you to just pick from a list of Hibernate entities you've created, and instantly you have the ability to perform all CRUD operations on that entity, no code required. Then you can add business logic.
The wizard:
http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwtee/showcase/#tools_hibernate_wizard
The link about is just screenshots, but there are several Hibernate samples in the showcase. See especially the Master-Detail Batch Load and Save sample.
As far as performance, real-world performance of most enterprise apps is dictated by how often the application has to contact the server. In this area SmartGWT has a large lead because of features like Adaptive Filtering (see the Featured area in the SmartGWT showcase).
Almost all reports we receive of SmartGWT being "slow" are due to having Firebug enabled. Disable Firebug and performance is fine, so normal end users will never perceive slowness.
About 6 months ago, we studied whether we would use ExtJS or GWT-Ext for an internal application. We wanted the back-end to be J2EE standard frameworks (struts, spring, hibernate for persistence, etc.). We ended up choosing ExtJS because it seemed to us that GWT was not stable enough (too many changes in the API that is still recent), and Ext-GWT was always lagging behind in development.
application which mainly consist NavigationPane, Grid, Toolbar.
Well, this tells us a lot about your app, doesn't it :)
I think it comes down to how good you are at either Java or JavaScript. They are quite a different languages you know :) But if you are well-versed at both but only used Ext JS, then picking up Ext GWT (or GWT Ext, if you meant that), shouldn't be such a great deal. And if that application you are planning is going to be as simple and small as your description of it, then it's probably a perfect opportunity to try out something new.
I use GWT-Ext and it is quite good especially if you don't mind tweaking things with JSNI to customize the already existing Ext widgets it is incredibly powerful. Unfortunately development is stagnant, so my future projects will probably be either in SmartGWT or Ext-GWT. SmartGWT is written by Sanjiv Jivan (same guy who wrote GWT-Ext) and it has most of the widgets we need. I must say most of the skins are quite dated except the Enterprise skin which looks good, but you can always roll your own skin.