
qooxdoo: javascript framework for desktop-like web apps - chaostheory
http://qooxdoo.org/
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gojomo
Nice job of aping the Windows look... but often, web apps _should_ look like
web apps, since they are stuck in the browser pane, and suffer some network
lags. I've seen a lot of projects shoot for a 'desktop-like' look & feel,
spend a lot of time chasing it, but always miss by at least enough that the
app lands in an 'uncanny valley', neither webby nor desktoppy.

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edu
I've spend the last 9 months building a web-application that had to look like
a desktop one. I never liked the idea, but my bosses and our customers were
not reasonable.

Now we have an application that runs on a web browser, looks neither like a
web pager nor a desktop application, the back button does not work neither the
bookmarks. Also, it feels reaaally slow, and there are some big hacks to
ensure it works on both IE and FF (on safari and opera you get a message
recommending to use IE/FF).

Moreover, we did not use the standard backend for the framework, and we had
big problems to make them work well together.

I'm ashamed of myself :(

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jamongkad
Dayum that sucks! But I agree that web apps should look like web apps and
desktop apps should look like a desktop. Not that there is anything wrong with
the latter. So how did the project go?

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edu
It is currently working and our customers seems happy.

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daniel-cussen
If they're accepted, Web 2.0 names are going to create some crazy scrabble
high scores.

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henning
Selecting the "right" JavaScript framework to work with is a classic example
of how broad choice is paralyzing.

You could spend weeks evaluating everything out there looking for the
"right"/"best" one for your needs.

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axod
The "right" framework/library is often 'none'.

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jamongkad
A few years back I would have agreed with you. But since the birth of jQuery.
I can't say your statement holds any weight now.

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bdfh42
I always get nervous when I see statements like "No HTML, CSS nor DOM
knowledge is needed" but this does seem an interesting set of tools - I am
looking forward to having a few more minutes to spend reviewing this properly.

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jksmith
Response seemed a little slow to me, but I don't know what the quality of the
staging was by the time it got to my browser so I'll reserve judgement.

I hope this framework does not make the mistake of that other Windows-look
framework has done, is overly model everything down to a setter/getter for the
minutest datapoint -- end result is an uncompressed codebase that drags during
creation and freeing.

Cut some corners, leave a few nodes out of those object hierarchies, and put
more code on a single line - won't bother me any.

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wallflower
Wow. makes me feel old. I used to curse Netscape (if I wasn 't cursing IE) and
curse IE (if I wasn't cursing Netscape) about DOM support. I used to write
Javascript to programatically manipulate DHTML layers by hand and use Dan
Steinman's DHTML library. It's so much easier now using Prototype et al.

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edw519
Thanks for the Dan Steinman reference. I remember learning some pretty cool
javascript hacks from his site years ago. Anyone who hasn't seen it oughta
take a look.

[http://www.jalix.org/ressources/internet/dhtml/_dynduo/dyndu...](http://www.jalix.org/ressources/internet/dhtml/_dynduo/dynduo/)

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juanpablo
"You must have Netscape 4.0 or Internet Explorer 4.0 to view the examples of
this site"

Cleary _it is_ from years ago.

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edw519
A shame he hasn't kept it up. I wonder what happened. Maybe he got so many
paying gigs that this wasn't worth his time any more.

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amohr
It feels a little too desktoppy, I think I'll stick with Ext

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lanceusa
Hey cool...only if windows had a backbutton. But I like that I know
javascript,css, and html

