What web UI framework is most suitable for building dynamic pages / forms?

Question

Hello,

We are at a stage where we are considering different Web UI frameworks (most likely component based ones such as GWT, JSF, Wicket, Vaadin, etc).

One of the main use cases / constraints is that it must support generating dynamic pages. I.e., the page/form layout and components is stored in a database and is changeable at runtime, and from this pages are generated. We are also going to write static layouts, but that is not the main focus of this question.

I thought maybe the user community here can share experiences of different frameworks in this context. Are there differences in ease of implementation and what is suitable?

Answer 1

Neither of the mentioned frameworks supports creating components from DB out-of-the-box. But there are frameworks which can do this. I only know client side frameworks such as swixml but there are webframeworks which can do this, I am sure.

But it is fairly easy to define some json/xml format and create components from them.

I would go with Vaadin (based on GWT) then, which is my favourite at the moment. In wicket you will need to save the html as well, but this is also ok + fast (!) and very nice if not all of your clients have javascript enabled.

JSF, hhmmh, no comments, although it should be possible ;-)

Answer 2

As GWT allows building page components programmatically, it should be good for you. About using JSF - I would not recommend.