> I just wonder what people would like to see in a GWT library: what widgets,
> what features? I guess a nice look and feel for a start, but what else?
I took a brief look at gwt-mosaic and while I haven't used it yet, the
source for the examples is more in line with what I was hoping for
with GXT.
> What do you consider iffy design choices?
1) Use of generics. If you're like me you rather work with POJO's
everywhere and have type safety. I'd much rather call employee.getName
() then employee.get("name"). In many cases, the API design forces
you to use ModelData classes instead of BeanModel's or your wrapped
ModelData classes. I think the GXT developer is aware of this and is
cleaning up the API a bit.
Many of the examples don't even use generics.
2) The GXT components are not easily extendable. In Swing terms,
imagine if you extend JLabel and override paintComponent. Instead of
rendering a label you render a red square. Nothing breaks and you
have your nice shiny square. If you take a GXT button and override
onRender with a completely new impl, chances are you will break
several things. Other methods in the class depend on certain elements
to exist in the DOM or certain styles to exist in the Elements. If
you plan on using GXT's components as is or customizing the CSS
slightly you should be fine.
On Dec 22, 10:40 pm, "Fred Janon" <fja...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I just wonder what people would like to see in a GWT library: what widgets,
> what features? I guess a nice look and feel for a start, but what else?
>
> > 4) There's some really iffy design decisions.
>
> What do you consider iffy design choices?
>
> Fred
>
> On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:45, nogridbag <nogrid...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I've been using GXT (Ext-GWT) for quite some time now. While it
> > certainly looks nice and provides a good amount of functionality
> > lacking in GWT, there are several drawbacks.
>
> > 1) It is very buggy. Bugs get fixed fairly fast, which is good, but I
> > find myself submitting an abnormally large amount of bugs. While the
> > developer (singular) is very responsive, passionate about his work,
> > and friendly, the code isn't exactly up to the standards that was
> > hoping for.
>
> > 2) It is not just a set of widgets, it's a complete framework on top
> > of GWT. Your team will have to invest time to learn it.
> > Intermingling GWT widgets and GXT widgets is possible, but confusing
> > IMHO. Which leads me to my next issue.
>
> > 3) Documentation is still very lacking, although they're working on
> > it...
>
> > 4) There's some really iffy design decisions.
> > a) The use of generics is not only inconsistent, but in many cases
> > it's not even possible to use generics due to API bugs. The example I
> > was going to post was actually just fixed in the release today.
> > b) While the widgets look nice and performance is OK, you are forced
> > to back the GXT components (like Grid, Tree, List) with GXT specific
> > data model objects. If you have a simple Employee POJO, and you want
> > to add it to a GXT Grid, you have to either wrap it in a Model or
> > ModelData class, or you have to implement a marker interface and do a
> > bit of trickery to get it in the Grid. The only reason for all of
> > this is to support binding (since GWT doesn't support reflection). I
> > would much rather have preferred a Swing like TableModel and an
> > optional binding layer on top of it.
> > c) The widgets look nice out of the box and customizing them slightly
> > with CSS is pretty easy. However, if the changes require you to alter
> > the HTML of a GXT component, you're in for a world of pain. The HTML
> > markup is tied heavily into the functionality of the widgets and is
> > referenced throughout the class either by tag name, tag id, or by css
> > "class". IMHO, the UI should be completely separate from the
> > functionality of the widgets.
>
> > 5) Size. The CSS itself is ~80k.
>
> > On the plus side, it's nice to have a pure GWT library in which I can
> > step into Java code (which you will have to do quite often!). The
> > widgets look and function very nicely. It would take a lot of time
> > and money to write many of the widgets GXT provides. If you plan on
> > using it as is, it works fine.
>
> > On Dec 19, 10:13 am, "Juan Backson" <juanback...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi,
>
> > > I have been using GWT for almost 6 months now. In the past six months, I
> > > have tried migrating code from pure GWT to GWT-EXT and then to Smart-GWT.
>
> > > They all have drawback:
>
> > > GWT - no good looking widget
> > > GWT-Ext - very buggy and GPL licensing
> > > Smart-GWT - slow and memory intensive
>
> > > Is there any library that has the same capability of Smart-GWT and good
> > > performance?
>
> > > Thanks,
> > > JB
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