Appendix C. Ajax frameworks and libraries

 

The last year has seen a rapid proliferation of Ajax and JavaScript frameworks, from small cross-browser wrapper utilities to complete end-to-end client and server solutions. In this appendix, we attempt to take a snapshot of the current range of offerings, with apologies to any that we’ve omitted.

We, the authors of this book, haven’t personally used all of these frameworks and toolkits in a production setting, and in many cases we’ve based our descriptions on the author or vendor’s own claims for the toolkit. If you’re reading this a year after publication, many of the descriptions will be wildly inaccurate or out of date, and many of the frameworks may have been abandoned or absorbed into other projects. The current state of play is unstable, in our opinions, and we would expect a few successful frameworks to predominate over the next 12 months.

So here, without any further ado, is our roundup of Ajax frameworks that you might encounter in the wild. We haven’t attempted to categorize them beyond listing them alphabetically. Happy coding!

Accesskey Underlining Library

Open source

Adds accesskey underlining to pages without requiring <u> tags in the source. Tag items with the accesskey attribute and JavaScript will create the appropriate underlining tags in the DOM.

ActiveWidgets

Commercial with free download

Rich client JavaScript widgets; current flagship product is a rich grid widget.

Ajax JavaServer Faces Framework

Ajax JSP Tag Library

Ajax.NET

AjaxAC

AjaxAspects

AjaxCaller

AjaxFaces

BackBase

Behaviour

Bindows

BlueShoes

CakePHP

CL-Ajax

ComfortASP.NET

Coolest DHTML Calendar

CPAINT (Cross-Platform Asynchronous Interface Toolkit)

Dojo

DWR (Direct Web Remoting)

Echo 2

f(m)

FCKEditor

Flash JavaScript Integration Kit

Google AjaxSLT

Guise

HTMLHttpRequest

Interactive Website Framework

Jackbe

JPSpan

jsolait

JSON

JSRS (JavaScript Remote Scripting)

LibXMLHttpRequest

Mochikit

netWindows

Oddpost

OpenRico

Pragmatic Objects