Grails Ajax rich client plug-in horizontal competition

To succeed, software must have a good ecological environment that can support it. With its plug-in architecture, Grails has laid a good foundation for its own development. Looking at the growing list of Grails plug-ins, it's hard to imagine the future development of Grails. The increasing number of plug-ins also gives developers the opportunity to choose from, especially when faced with plug-ins with the same or similar functions. In this case, the natural question is, "Which of them is the best ?"

Recently, Dean Del Ponte wrote an article to compare the Ajax rich client plug-ins of four Grails and gave his own judgment. For heavyweight rich customer solutions such as Flex or JavaFX, the author claims not to consider it. Dean Del Ponte first compares the advantages and disadvantages of the four plug-ins:

Prototype/Scriptaculous

Advantages

It is included in Grails by default.

Popular frameworks with API documentation and online help

Prototype is easier to use. Note that the learning curve of Scriptaculous is shorter than that of Prototype.

Good Community support. There are many free third-party components.

Disadvantages

Except APIs, the documentation is not detailed and difficult to find

It is no longer the "Leader ". Often act as followers of other frameworks.

The learning curve is much steep than other frameworks.

GrailsUI plug-in

Advantages

Integrates GSP labels that support 10 YUI Components

The GrailsUI plug-in wiki page and YUI homepage both have detailed documents.

SpringSource developer participation

Disadvantages

GSP label implementation not provided for all YUI Components

YUI components with GSP labels do not support all features, such as editing in cells of a data table)

Limited number of available third-party YUI Components

RichUI plug-in

Advantages

Provides the implementation of 21 rich client components

A large number of GSP tag Integration

Well documented

Disadvantages

Contains multiple underlying JavaScript frameworks, which may conflict with other plug-ins

JQuery

Advantages

Detailed documents with routines

Large community

The number of large component libraries is the largest among the existing JavaScript frameworks

A large number of components can be accessed from the project website. jQuery calls them plug-ins)

Simple and Easy-to-use syntax

Disadvantages

Except for the default Grails labels, integration of other GSP labels is not provided.

It is required that you have a general understanding of jQuery APIs, syntaxes, and JavaScript for effective use.

Back to our original question: "Which of them is the best ?", The author's answer is quite smooth: "depends on your needs ". You don't have to worry too much, because such a thing is also "radish cabbage has a love ". Of course, the author still gave his favorite plug-in RichUI.

At the end of this article, the author gives his comprehensive rating for the four plug-ins:

RichUI

Easy to use and integrate with GSP labels. JavaScript knowledge is not required. Both novice and veteran Grails are treated equally.

GrailsUI

It is not as easy to use as the RichUI plug-in, but the documentation is good and provides some good components and good GSP label integration.

JQuery

If you have nothing to do with JavaScript and want to learn jQuery, you can use it. There is no limit on its use. I strongly recommend it to developers who are not intimidated by JavaScript.

Prototype/Scriptaculous

Use it if you don't want or cannot include other frameworks in your project. It is not as useful as jQuery, but it has a large community and can also be found in documents.

In the comments in this article, some readers mentioned why the Grails ZK plug-in is not involved. Obviously, this article does not cover all the Grails Ajax plug-ins, but it does include the most popular Ajax plug-ins in Grails.

1. Use Ajax and Web Service Development instances of ASP. Net 3.5
2. Comparison of four external data formats in Ajax
3. ASP. net ajax client components