Comments on: GWT-Ext to Ext-GWT

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:15:44 +0000

Dennis, very excellent point. There aways seems to be that trade off of looks vs other stuff, and I know there’s a lot of garbage out there thats difficult to use with no support but the showcase or screenshots make the api look great….and of course the higher-ups want to use it.

As far as web designers…it seems nobody wants to pay for them. The bosses feel that engineers can do it well enough (which is ridiculous) and then the product ends up looking like crap and we get the blame.

…yep.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:08:44 +0000

I have used both GWT and the ExtJs for about a year. Coming from the Java side only, my desire to learn/pour over the JS was not at the top of my list. The downside for me is that while the EXTjs is not always the easiest to work with and implement, my users and boss demanded the slick features present in EXTjs, I did not have much of a choice. The downside for me was/is that when I don’t fully understand why something does not work as intended in extjs, I really can’t use their boards because the answers are generally “modify the JS” and that is not my desire. I have begun to toy with SmartGwt and the features just keep getting better and more attractive looking. While many of the things CAN be done with GWT alone, the ugly factor comes up and unfortunately those that direct me (CIO) know that there is much prettier stuff out there, I have no choice in the end. I know pretty is not always best for me, but in the end, functional but ugly is not good for me either. GWT has bridged the gap that was present before when I used Struts, it was only as pretty as I could make it without employing a web designer for images, now I don’t need them for the most part, and that means my boss can spend that money elsewhere, hopefully on my salary!

By: Enlargement

Enlargement — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 08:21:39 +0000

I am amazed with it. It is a good thing for my research. Thanks

By: Benoit Guerout

Benoit Guerout — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:04:47 +0000

Afaik gwt-ext is dead and developers advice to use smart-gwt instead of their project (Due to new ExtJs Licence)

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:41:16 +0000

@Andrew
I looked into SmartGWT. Here’s a few things I noticed:
-grid works great. I like the L&F
-found a few glitches when combining vanilla widgets with Smart’s widgets.
-you need the entire javascript Smart lib. Not intelligent enough to just copy the portions you need resulting in huge amounts of unused javascript.
-still in infancy. They’re on 1.0b1 and I’m not sure I want something this untested in a production environment.

By: Developer Dude

Developer Dude — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:10:47 +0000

I looked at both some months ago because I really liked the look and feel – very nice. As I understand it (IIRC), GWT-Ext is just a GWT/Java wrapper around Ext-JS. The problem with both is that the underlying code had a reputation for being ugly (I didn’t look at it myself), but the clincher was the fact that it was a wrapper around JS, which takes away one of the big advantages of GWT – the ability to debug in Java, not to mention all of the optimizing and other features of GWT that Google worked so hard to provide and which in the long run is very important for non-trivial projects.

Then Ext-GWT came along – okay, not a wrapper of Ext-JS, but native Java – right. Right. But there is still a problem; it didn’t extend GWT widgets. It created it’s own hierarchy from the base up – or at least that was how I remembered it. Which would have presented it’s own set of problems.

While writing this comment I went and looked at the JavaDocs for Ext-GWT and note that either I was wrong before, or they changed; they do indeed extend GWT widgets. To what degree is something a dev should explore before using the lib in a project. Then there is the code quality – something that takes time and effort to evaluate and I will leave for others at this time.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:57:25 +0000

Richard, I completely agree with your last statement. The base vanilla GWT beats all with functionality, event handling, and interaction with the model. I think what some of these other libs should have done was not put everything including the kitchen sink in with them. There are things that GWT is missing. Add those things and build upon them, but use the underlying model and handlers.

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:49:27 +0000

Actually I have extensive experience with GWT-Ext. I ended up using a hybrid like you discuss above. nesting Ext widgets in flextabels etc.. That said, its a frigin nightmare to get the desired behavior from either EXT once you start mixing containers. but .. I GUESS its kinda worth it, once you figure it out. Like you have to next a flextable in a Window not a RootPane etc…

I think whats needed in this arena is an alternative lib with a thin wrapper thats used for style and basic composts. One that is 100% GWT and nothing custom. the core functionality that comes stock with GWT is exceptional if you stick to GWT components.

By: Igor

Igor — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:02:19 +0000

btw, ext-gwt also have an good mvc and simplify communications with server-side

By: gwt66 » GWT-Ext to Ext-GWT

gwt66 » GWT-Ext to Ext-GWT — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:51:43 +0000

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