I was looking for (open source) AJAX frameworksand and found these JavaScript/ AJAX toolkits. But someone said that there are about 70 different frameworks. Hence this list is not complete!
Have a look at ajaxpatterns.org if you want a more complete list.
- Ruby on Rails
- ThinkCap JX
- ZK
- JackBe
- Echo2
- Backbase
- OpenLaszlo
- Orbeon Presentation Server
- DWR (Direc Web Remoting)
- AjaxAnywhere
- Google Web Toolkit (GWT)
- ScriptAculous
- OpenRico
- DOJO
- SAJAX
- MochiKit
- Lite AJaX
- SACK
- Zorn's DHTML library
You will find more links and information about AJAX in this article.
brentashley about Ajax and frameworks:
(Click the link to get a good diagram.)
The toolkits that are currently available and being developed provide different ranges of coverage of the model, allowing you to: - have the toolkit do it all from top to bottom (e.g. Ruby on Rails)
- provide your own back end and have the middle and front end taken care of for you (e.g. JackBe, which has an incredible toolset)
- use a component based framework like Dojo, where you can plug in different transport (iframe, XMLHTTP, script injection) or encoding layers (XML, JSON, delimited text)
- make browser-based RPC calls with SAJAX and do the UI part yourself
- intertwine HTML/CSS and Flash, use Flash for behind the scenes transport and advanced presentation (did you know that there are open source Actionscript compilers now? Flash sure ain't any more what you think it was)
These are vastly different approaches, but we agreed that they are all forms of Ajax - using sub-page information transfer to support a rich interface that allows developers to be freed from some of the constraints of conventional stateless http page-refreshing web design and to be able to better collaborate with user-experience focused UI designers to make applications that are intuitive and responsive.
A very interesting link to a list of AJAX Frameworks with annotations (ajaxpatterns.org).
Professional Frameworks
Rails is good web framework written in Ruby. The marketing for Rails claims that it lets you develop ten times faster than a programmer without Rails. In the Wiki you find some useful links. Also see the comment from brentashley above.
License: BSD
RAD for AJAX, J2EE and open source. This is a collection of different libraries as the object relation mapper Hibernate, the free Java framework for web applications Struts or the testing unit JUnit, with additional libraries for GUI, logging and data connection.
It works with Eclipse. You find a whitepaper on their website.
License: GPL and commercial
ZK is an open-source Ajax Web framework that enables rich user interface for Web applications with no JavaScript and little programming.
With a markup language and scripting in Java, designing becomes as simple as authoring HTML.
This is a visual AJAX GUI development toolset for professional use. The JavaScript-libraries are very lightweight. A key principle of the architecture is the clean separation of the application's presentation layer from the backend process and data services.
See also the comment of brentashley above.
License: commercial
Echo2 is the next-generation of the Echo Web Framework, a platform for developing web-based applications that approach the capabilities of rich clients. Knowledge of HTML, HTTP, and JavaScript is not required. Applications may be hosted using any Java servlet container.
XML-based professional frameworks
The Backbase Presentation Client is designed to interact with their Presentation Server. They also have a Backbase Development Environment for Java and .NET.
There is a custom UI declaration language called BXML (Backbase eXtensible Markup Language) to create highly interactive web sites. A number of demos are available on their website.
License: commercial and community version
About the following two products you will find more in formation in another article on this site.
This is agreat framework for building rich web application.
It is based on XML. One can program declaratively. A compiler makes a flash application from the XML.
License: CPL 1.0
OPS is an excellent framework for the presentation layer. It is based on XML.
From version 3.0 on, the XForms engine (server-side) provides Ajax support.
License: LGPL
Other Ajax/ JavaScript frameworks or libraries
DWR allows Javascript in a browser to interact with Java on a server and helps you manipulate web pages with the result. DWR is easy AJAX for Java.
AjaxAnywhere is designed to turn any set of existing JSP or JSF components into AJAX-aware components without complex JavaScript coding.
In contrast to other solutions, AjaxAnywhere is not component-oriented. You will not find here yet another AutoComplete component.
Simply separate your web page into multiple zones, and use AjaxAnywhere to refresh only those zones that needs to be updated.
GWT is a Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications easy for developers who don't speak browser quirks as a second language.
You write your front end in the Java programming language, and the GWT compiler converts your Java classes to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML.
ScriptAculous oes exactly what I want for drag and drop. Look at the drag and drop shopping cart under the demos... link, as well as the sortable floats demo.
The Rico stuff also looks good. I like this open source JavaScript library for rich internet applications. It provides full AJAX support, a drag and drop library and a cinematic effects library.
Zimbra is a (partly open source) collaboration suite. But they also published an (open source) Ajax toolkit. It looks impressive, but unfortunately there appears to be a good bit of work involved with just figuring out how to make it work. The Zimbra Ajax toolkit is part of IBM's "Open Ajax initiative".
DOJO is an open source toolkit. It allows to build Ajax applications as well using DHTML components. It is still in an early stage but looks promising. DOJO is part of IBM's "Open Ajax initiative".
SAJAX is an AJAX stub framework. It apparently needs a backend, which is not available in TCL, but they have PHP, Perl, Ruby backends.
Sam Ruby says Sajax is still unsafe.
I really liked the MochiKit sortable table - I think it would make an excellent replacement for listbuilder in some cases (Rico has similar functionality, but I don't think it looks as nice).
This is a small wrapper arount the main operations. It simpliefies the XMLHTTPConnection process. Lite AJaX is a barebone JavaScript class.
I did not find SACK very impressive. It seems to have only limited functionality. But that is what it is written for.
Walter Zorn´s DHTML library for drag and drop. It is a little bit complicated, but works well. This is not AJAX. |
 | LIST OF COMMENTS |
1/2. Sajax is now available in TCL
Written by Dereckson - Saturday, June 02 '2007
Website | | Email NOSPAMdereckson at espace-win.org |  | Sajax has now been ported to TCL.
Project homepage: www.espace-win.info/EWOSP/SajaxTCL |
2/2. Another Ajax/JavaScript toolkit for your list
Written by Ivan - Tuesday, December 30 '2008
Website | | Email dhtmlx at gmail.com | | This one could extend the list:
DHTMLX (dhtmlx.com) is a JavaScript library of Ajax-based UI components, among which full-featured datagrid, tree menu, and layout control that allows developers to combine all the components into a common user interface. DHTMLX is available under GNU GPL and commercial licenses, so it can be a great help for those who build either open source or commercial Ajax-based applications. |
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