NOTE: I am not an engineer. Β I am very good with HTML/CSS and I love jQuery. Β The following is from that point of view.
I was wondering what the state of RIA Frameworks were these days. Β Have more competitors popped up? Β How easy are they? Β As a non-engineer, I wondered if any were easy for me to use. Β As a Designer, I wondered if any have some kickass interaction design baked in? Β What frameworks are out there now?
- ExtJS. Β We use this at Marketo. Β Built pretty much for engineers, not css web developers. The sub-classing system makes code reuse very easy. Β The samples are fantastic. Β The API browser is fun to use and excellently designed. ExtJS really understands the subtleties of interaction design. Β The CSS is very easy to manipulate so you can have your own look and feel. Β As a designer, building an RIA with ExtJS has been very fun. Β Marketo is a much better application thanks to it.
- jQuery UI. Β This is pretty new and built on top of the best general purpose JS Framework around, jQuery. Β This is absolutely usable by regular web/html/css developers. Β It has a ways to go in terms of product maturity (graphic design, interaction design, features) but it is off to a great start. Β Besides, it is open source and free and incredibly easy to use.
- Flex. Β I have a friend who uses Flex. Β He has gotten quite good at it. Β I haven’t tried Flex builder in a long time. Β It seems to be targeted at RIA applications and not casual use. Β The pricing can be alot depending on if you need server-side components that come with it. Β I wish they had a FLex-Lite which was targeted at CSS people like me. Β I would love to write something that looks like XHTML/CSS and have it render in Flex. Β I hate cross-browser testing.
- Silverlight. Β I have no idea how this works. Β Message to Microsoft: Β If you could make Silverlight easy enough for me to understand you would have a killer application. Β If not, it will get lost in the shuffle. Β Sorry. Β Message #2: Β Have a samples page with source. Β Give people an example of how it works. Β Wierd, I can’t seem to make it work in Google Chrome.
- OpenLazlo. Β This works alot like Flex, but is open source. Β The syntax reminds me alot of ZK Direct RIA (Below), except the output is Flash versus HTML. Β I wonder what the current state of SEO is for Flash pages.
- ZK Direct RIA. Β I just saw this today. Β The samples page was nice. Β Shows real examples with the source. It says that it is open source, but its unclear if there is any pricing. Β The source looked like XML, so it wasn’t that hard, but I couldn’t see easy ways to customize.
- Thinwire. Β It came up first in google. Β Open Source and free. Β Terrible (non-existant?) website, so I really can’t tell how it is used. Β Clearly targeted at programmers. Β Hmm, are there really alot of ecclipse engineers making RIA apps? Β Why haven’t I seen the actual products?
- Active Widgets. Β This has been around for a long time. Β The syntax looks really hard to me. Β A little pricey. Anyone using this?
- Backbase. Β Nice website. Β It took me a little while to find the hello world. Β Holy Crap! Β That is intensely difficult. Β Next!
- Dojo Toolkit. Β I am sure there are engineers who love Dojo, but the complexity is so hard for me to understand. Β It’s not as bad as Backbase, but it’s close. Β All of these are hard. Β It’s a pattern.
- Yahoo User Interface Library. Β We used to use this in the early early early days of Marketo. Has Yahoo been standardizing on this library for all internal sites? Β YUI is easily recognized by its insane use of namespacing. Β Some people love this. Β The interaction design on YUI is not bad. Β They liked big target buttons, which I enjoy too.
- SmartClient.Β UPDATE:Β I wrote up an individual review.
- Qooxdoo. Β Such a kooky name. Β Clearly targeted towards engineers. Β The Hello World made my head spin. Β I tried the demo browser. Β Very slow. Β And the interaction/graphic design is horrible. Β Look at the tree. Β Come on, put a little effort in.
- WaveMaker. Β I think this used to be called TurboWidgets. Β I can’t seem to find a Hello World example.
- Have a Hello World example ON THE HOMEPAGE! Β Why do I have to search for this? Β It’s the clearest, most simple advice I can give. Β Show what it is like to use the framework quickly. Β Don’t make me hunt around for it and then get confused when I just want a simple idea of what it is like to use your framework.
- Have an examples link on the homepage. Β Not complicated examples. Β Simple examples with source code. Β If I am shopping around for a framework, keep it simple and informative. Β Don’t try to WOW me with complexity. Β Wow me with simplicity.
- Have an API browser. Β Why isn’t this obvious? Β This is NOT a PDF file. Β Use your own framework to make an API browser. Β Eat your own dogfood.
- Make your website in your own framework. Β Eat your own dogfood!
- Differentiate. Β They all look the same, so you need to make sure you stand out somehow.
Whatya think?