

Ask HN: killer JS framework for RIA - bachback

Why is there no rock solid framework for RIA (= JS desktop like apps in the browser)?<p>Here is my list of serious RIA frameworks.<p>Ext JS
Yahoo YUI
Cappuccino
Qooxdoo
DOJO
Moo Tools
JqueryUI
KendoUI
zeptojs<p>ExtJS is commercial, Cappuccino uses a custom language, YUI is old, jQueryUI and dojo don&#x27;t have good tables &amp; panels. Qooxdoo is very nice, but has not managed to build a rich community for whatever reason. I didn&#x27;t include Angular and Backbone, because they quite different goals it seems to me.<p>How does Google&#x27;s polymer&#x2F;XBL2&#x2F;Shawdow-Dom fit into the picture? Any emerging libs already building on this?
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clarle
Hey there,

I work on YUI, and there's definitely lots of active development still going
on with it. There's sometimes a bit of confusion with YUI2 and YUI3, with YUI2
being much older and more verbose.

YUI3 is a lot more developer-friendly, and we've worked to build more modern
components such as Pure CSS [1] and the YUI App Framework [2]. SmugMug's new
site that they released a few days ago
([http://www.smugmug.com/](http://www.smugmug.com/)) is built on top of YUI,
and it looks absolutely fantastic.

If there's anything I can help you out with, definitely feel free to let me
know! We've definitely come a long way since YUI2.

[1]: [http://purecss.io/](http://purecss.io/)

[2]:
[http://yuilibrary.com/yui/docs/app/](http://yuilibrary.com/yui/docs/app/)

~~~
bachback
Thanks for the post. I'm mainly looking for advanced tables and window
layouts. I will have to take a closer look.

Any thoughts on the emerging standards like XBL and shadow dom in relation to
YUI?

~~~
clarle
If you're looking for more desktop-style layouts, I'd recommend checking out
AlloyUI ([http://alloyui.com/](http://alloyui.com/)), which builds on top of
YUI3. They've been doing a lot of great work there.

On emerging standards, we're definitely taking a look at those, we have a few
Gallery modules (our user-contributed modules, which can be approved to be
placed on the Yahoo! CDN) that do act as polyfills for several of the new
emerging standard elements.

I don't remember offhand if we have some for XBL or Shadow DOM yet, but I
definitely know that we had a module for X-Tag [1] a while back. I'll
definitely check it out, and get back to you on the rest.

[1]: [http://www.x-tags.org/](http://www.x-tags.org/)

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frankydp
You are very right.

EXTJS is the only RIA and desktop top js lib that has enough features to be a
net gain for the UI dev. There is room for a desktop focused lib in this
space, that is not at the scale of EXT, or even an opensource project.

[http://www.kendoui.com/](http://www.kendoui.com/)

Kendo is not ideal but does address a couple of your issues. It is opensource
for delayed versions and commercial for current. But it has a poison tree
license on the free version. I only bring it up because some of the structures
allowed me to build a recent project with a mostly desktop feel, although the
documentation is beyond horrible.

~~~
rufugee
Why do you call GPL3 a poison tree license?

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firefoxNX11
why do you think angular, knockout, backbone, ember have different goals?

~~~
bachback
these primarily deal with bindings, templating, etc. For RIA one needs complex
even propagation. The difference in my mind is that RIA are much more like a
workbench than a horizontal website. In a workbench you have toolbars, menus
and panels which can be customized for the complex workflow. Typically such an
application has only a couple of views but many possible actions, where as
webapps have several views, but only limited number of actions directly
affecting what is on the screen.

~~~
firefoxNX11
all modern JS MVC frameworks provide event propagation. would you consider SPA
(single page apps) as RIA?

~~~
bachback
yes, I'm looking frameworks which have a more SPA approach and don't have the
look and feel of a website. Two examples:
[https://gomockingbird.com](https://gomockingbird.com) is built with
cappuccino, [http://pixlr.com/](http://pixlr.com/) is built with flash. What
for example is very hard to do are tables, which are important for enterprise
apps. Only ExtJS and YUI approach real desktop quality (scrolling, sorting,
filtering) IMO.

