JavaScript GUI Libraries

[Gary Schiltz-4]

I'm starting to develop (as an unpaid volunteer) an application for the local medical clinic, and I'd like to deploy it as a browser application ("rich internet app"). Of course, I cold just use plain old HTML and CSS, but I'd like it to be much more interactive, basically like a desktop application. It would seem the best (for some definition of good :-) technology for the job would be JavaScript on the front-end (although I could do it in Java with Swing or JavaFX and deliver it as a JNLP app). Anyway, does anyone here have any preferences for a GUI toolkit for JavaScript? So far, I've been looking at Dojo, JQuery, YUI, Ext JS, and the Google Closure library. As I'm pretty new to the whole JS world, I'm thoroughly confused (maybe that means that I'm on the right track :-). I'd really appreciate feedback.
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[Owen Densmore]

One thing to consider is "mobile" .. i.e. do you want this to work across a wide range of devices: phones, tablets, laptops etc.  If so, you'll need to consider various options for "responsive design", .. i.e a design that automatically adjusts to the device and its screen size.  Ditto for "touch" vs "mouse" (good libraries for that).

If not, there are a few of us (Ben L. for example) who've used Angular for a nice interface, including event binding and UI elements .. which he integrated with Firebase (a web service syncing events and JSON data across devices, very cool indeed).

You'll also need to consider the whole client/server thing .. how much do you want to do on the client vs how much on the server.  I've been amazed recently how nifty nodejs is.  I've had to use it for desktop use recently, and am surprised how sophisticated it is.  Ex: I've replaced Make with Cake (a coffeescript/node stunt that gives you pretty nice workflow tools).

DB, an issue, right?  Firebase can help for fairly simply DBish tasks .. think of JSON in the cloud.  SimTable is successfully using it.  And there is a Node/CouchDB library.

Finally, if you really want to go hyper modern, consider JS all the way.  And a good tool is CoffeeScript which compiles down to JS and is completely integrated into Node.  Your code size (Lines of Code) will be about 1/3 native JS.

   -- Owen

On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Gary Schiltz <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm starting to develop (as an unpaid volunteer) an application for the local medical clinic, and I'd like to deploy it as a browser application ("rich internet app"). Of course, I cold just use plain old HTML and CSS, but I'd like it to be much more interactive, basically like a desktop application. It would seem the best (for some definition of good :-) technology for the job would be JavaScript on the front-end (although I could do it in Java with Swing or JavaFX and deliver it as a JNLP app). Anyway, does anyone here have any preferences for a GUI toolkit for JavaScript? So far, I've been looking at Dojo, JQuery, YUI, Ext JS, and the Google Closure library. As I'm pretty new to the whole JS world, I'm thoroughly confused (maybe that means that I'm on the right track :-). I'd really appreciate feedback.
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[Russell Standish-2]

With Javascript, you have the DOM built in. Which means your GUI
elements are all the stuff available in HTML (eg HTML5 canvas), but
dynamically driven from Javascript.

The only slight gotcha is that browsers tend to implement slightly
incompatible versions of HTML, so lots of testing is needed.

Cheers

On Mon, Jul 01, 2013 at 09:11:57PM -0500, Gary Schiltz wrote:
> I'm starting to develop (as an unpaid volunteer) an application for the local medical clinic, and I'd like to deploy it as a browser application ("rich internet app"). Of course, I cold just use plain old HTML and CSS, but I'd like it to be much more interactive, basically like a desktop application. It would seem the best (for some definition of good :-) technology for the job would be JavaScript on the front-end (although I could do it in Java with Swing or JavaFX and deliver it as a JNLP app). Anyway, does anyone here have any preferences for a GUI toolkit for JavaScript? So far, I've been looking at Dojo, JQuery, YUI, Ext JS, and the Google Closure library. As I'm pretty new to the whole JS world, I'm thoroughly confused (maybe that means that I'm on the right track :-). I'd really appreciate feedback.
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[Robert J. Cordingley]

Then you might consider who's going to maintain it when your not available and what level of skill may be needed.  Esoteric and cool is... well esoteric and cool.  Pragmatic and well worn and well known might lead you to consider more mundane but well used tools especially on the server side like PHP and MySQL and perhaps WordPress and the thousands of themes and plugins.  Many WP themes are responsive/mobile friendly right out of the box saving tons of work - some premium some free.

Thanks
Robert C

On 7/1/13 9:11 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

One thing to consider is "mobile" .. i.e. do you want this to work across a wide range of devices: phones, tablets, laptops etc.  If so, you'll need to consider various options for "responsive design", .. i.e a design that automatically adjusts to the device and its screen size.  Ditto for "touch" vs "mouse" (good libraries for that).

If not, there are a few of us (Ben L. for example) who've used Angular for a nice interface, including event binding and UI elements .. which he integrated with Firebase (a web service syncing events and JSON data across devices, very cool indeed).

You'll also need to consider the whole client/server thing .. how much do you want to do on the client vs how much on the server.  I've been amazed recently how nifty nodejs is.  I've had to use it for desktop use recently, and am surprised how sophisticated it is.  Ex: I've replaced Make with Cake (a coffeescript/node stunt that gives you pretty nice workflow tools).

DB, an issue, right?  Firebase can help for fairly simply DBish tasks .. think of JSON in the cloud.  SimTable is successfully using it.  And there is a Node/CouchDB library.

Finally, if you really want to go hyper modern, consider JS all the way.  And a good tool is CoffeeScript which compiles down to JS and is completely integrated into Node.  Your code size (Lines of Code) will be about 1/3 native JS.

   -- Owen

On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Gary Schiltz <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm starting to develop (as an unpaid volunteer) an application for the local medical clinic, and I'd like to deploy it as a browser application ("rich internet app"). Of course, I cold just use plain old HTML and CSS, but I'd like it to be much more interactive, basically like a desktop application. It would seem the best (for some definition of good :-) technology for the job would be JavaScript on the front-end (although I could do it in Java with Swing or JavaFX and deliver it as a JNLP app). Anyway, does anyone here have any preferences for a GUI toolkit for JavaScript? So far, I've been looking at Dojo, JQuery, YUI, Ext JS, and the Google Closure library. As I'm pretty new to the whole JS world, I'm thoroughly confused (maybe that means that I'm on the right track :-). I'd really appreciate feedback.
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[Gary Schiltz-4]

Point well taken about esoteric and cool versus pragmatic and well worn. The most certain route in software, like in most undertakings, is usually the familiar. The problem with the familiar is that many on the list, including those of us who are ourselves well worn (at least worn), are enamored with (might I go as far as to say addicted?) to the cool and esoteric, whether it be software tech, complexity science, philosophy, politics... So, I'm not just looking for a solution, I'm looking for a fix :-)  However, I was honest with my stakeholders and let them know that I'm being a bit selfish, in that I'm not doing this not just for them, but for me, using it as a justification for spending the time to learn some new stuff. The easiest implementation would likely be a traditional two-tier client server system, with the GUI and application logic done with Visual Basic talking to a MySQL server. Nothing wrong with that, maybe I'll even consider it when I grow up :-)

;; Gary

On Jul 1, 2013, at 11:20 PM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Then you might consider who's going to maintain it when your not available and what level of skill may be needed.  Esoteric and cool is... well esoteric and cool.  Pragmatic and well worn and well known might lead you to consider more mundane but well used tools especially on the server side like PHP and MySQL and perhaps WordPress and the thousands of themes and plugins.  Many WP themes are responsive/mobile friendly right out of the box saving tons of work - some premium some free.
>
> Thanks
> Robert C

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[Robert J. Cordingley]

In the interests of the medical clinic I wonder what packages are already out there that lead or support standards in EMR  and for a successful project how one would best align one's goals with theirs?
Robert C

On 7/2/13 8:39 AM, Gary Schiltz wrote:

Point well taken about esoteric and cool versus pragmatic and well worn. The most certain route in software, like in most undertakings, is usually the familiar. The problem with the familiar is that many on the list, including those of us who are ourselves well worn (at least worn), are enamored with (might I go as far as to say addicted?) to the cool and esoteric, whether it be software tech, complexity science, philosophy, politics... So, I'm not just looking for a solution, I'm looking for a fix :-)  However, I was honest with my stakeholders and let them know that I'm being a bit selfish, in that I'm not doing this not just for them, but for me, using it as a justification for spending the time to learn some new stuff. The easiest implementation would likely be a traditional two-tier client server system, with the GUI and application logic done with Visual Basic talking to a MySQL server. Nothing wrong with that, maybe I'll even consider it when I grow!
  up :-)

;; Gary

On Jul 1, 2013, at 11:20 PM, Robert J. Cordingley [hidden email] wrote:

Then you might consider who's going to maintain it when your not available and what level of skill may be needed.  Esoteric and cool is... well esoteric and cool.  Pragmatic and well worn and well known might lead you to consider more mundane but well used tools especially on the server side like PHP and MySQL and perhaps WordPress and the thousands of themes and plugins.  Many WP themes are responsive/mobile friendly right out of the box saving tons of work - some premium some free.

Thanks
Robert C

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[Gary Schiltz-4]

Also a very good point. Sometimes it's good to hop down from one's high horse into the muck, and in the words of a redneck comedian whose name escapes me now, simply "git 'er done". For every time there is a season, a time for cool new stuff, and a time for LAMP :-) The situation may indeed call for the latter (e.g. OpenEMR, which is PHP based). If I go with the latter, perhaps I can bug you (and not the list) with PHP questions.

Keeping it real,

Gary

On Jul 2, 2013, at 10:03 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

In the interests of the medical clinic I wonder what packages are already out there that lead or support standards in EMR  and for a successful project how one would best align one's goals with theirs?
Robert C

On 7/2/13 8:39 AM, Gary Schiltz wrote:

Point well taken about esoteric and cool versus pragmatic and well worn. The most certain route in software, like in most undertakings, is usually the familiar. The problem with the familiar is that many on the list, including those of us who are ourselves well worn (at least worn), are enamored with (might I go as far as to say addicted?) to the cool and esoteric, whether it be software tech, complexity science, philosophy, politics... So, I'm not just looking for a solution, I'm looking for a fix :-)  However, I was honest with my stakeholders and let them know that I'm being a bit selfish, in that I'm not doing this not just for them, but for me, using it as a justification for spending the time to learn some new stuff. The easiest implementation would likely be a traditional two-tier client server system, with the GUI and application logic done with Visual Basic talking to a MySQL server. Nothing wrong with that, maybe I'll even consider it when I grow!

  up :-)

;; Gary

On Jul 1, 2013, at 11:20 PM, Robert J. Cordingley 

<[hidden email]>

 wrote:

Then you might consider who's going to maintain it when your not available and what level of skill may be needed.  Esoteric and cool is... well esoteric and cool.  Pragmatic and well worn and well known might lead you to consider more mundane but well used tools especially on the server side like PHP and MySQL and perhaps WordPress and the thousands of themes and plugins.  Many WP themes are responsive/mobile friendly right out of the box saving tons of work - some premium some free.

Thanks

Robert C

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[Barry MacKichan]

There are a lot of libraries for JavaScript and some that I've used have gone out of favor. The one that seems to be the winner is jQuery. It hides all the browser differences, so you as long as you stick to the jQuery interface to the DOM, you can blissfully ignore the quirks of IE and other browsers. There are lots and lots of packages to extend it, so that someone else has probably done whatever you need, such as talking to a MySQL database. The forums also seem pretty active. I recommend JavaScript and jQuery on the browser side.

I second Owen's recommendation of node.js on the server side. Like jQuery, it has tons of libraries. What makes node.js relatively unique is that all IO calls are non-blocking, using callbacks instead. It takes a while to get used to the new programming style, but then your server code is never unavailable because it is waiting for a disk or database operation to finish.

There are good books devoted to both of these libraries.

--Barry

On Jul 2, 2013, at 10:01 AM, Gary Schiltz <[hidden email]> wrote:

Also a very good point. Sometimes it's good to hop down from one's high horse into the muck, and in the words of a redneck comedian whose name escapes me now, simply "git 'er done". For every time there is a season, a time for cool new stuff, and a time for LAMP :-) The situation may indeed call for the latter (e.g. OpenEMR, which is PHP based). If I go with the latter, perhaps I can bug you (and not the list) with PHP questions.

Keeping it real,

Gary

On Jul 2, 2013, at 10:03 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

In the interests of the medical clinic I wonder what packages are already out there that lead or support standards in EMR  and for a successful project how one would best align one's goals with theirs?
Robert C

On 7/2/13 8:39 AM, Gary Schiltz wrote:

Point well taken about esoteric and cool versus pragmatic and well worn. The most certain route in software, like in most undertakings, is usually the familiar. The problem with the familiar is that many on the list, including those of us who are ourselves well worn (at least worn), are enamored with (might I go as far as to say addicted?) to the cool and esoteric, whether it be software tech, complexity science, philosophy, politics... So, I'm not just looking for a solution, I'm looking for a fix :-)  However, I was honest with my stakeholders and let them know that I'm being a bit selfish, in that I'm not doing this not just for them, but for me, using it as a justification for spending the time to learn some new stuff. The easiest implementation would likely be a traditional two-tier client server system, with the GUI and application logic done with Visual Basic talking to a MySQL server. Nothing wrong with that, maybe I'll even consider it when I grow!

  up :-)

;; Gary

On Jul 1, 2013, at 11:20 PM, Robert J. Cordingley 

<[hidden email]>

 wrote:

Then you might consider who's going to maintain it when your not available and what level of skill may be needed.  Esoteric and cool is... well esoteric and cool.  Pragmatic and well worn and well known might lead you to consider more mundane but well used tools especially on the server side like PHP and MySQL and perhaps WordPress and the thousands of themes and plugins.  Many WP themes are responsive/mobile friendly right out of the box saving tons of work - some premium some free.

Thanks

Robert C

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