most appropriate decision for dynamic web content

Question

Hello all,
First of all, I'm sorry because of this lame question. But I'm kind of lost in all dynamic-html, ajax, etc stuff. So i decided get help from the pros.
Basically what I'm trying to do is creating a web page which have dynamic content(messages) coming from a web server(asp.net or php) presented in floating(movable by viewer) boxes in the page. And those boxes will be created dynamically upon a trigger from the server. And the viewer should be able to draw lines between those boxes to connect them(this information will also be sent/received to/from the server). Now which technologies should i use to have this? Is a combination of ajax+html5+jscript enough for this? Or do i need libraries like Yahoo's YUI, Google's GWT, etc.? Or, is flash/silverlight the best solution? Or something else? Thanks

Answer 1

I'm no pro but I'd go for the HTML+JS+CSS version. As for the libraries, they'll help you in getting your content accross the many browsers and provide you with some nice utilities ;)

Answer 2

You don't need frameworks to do any of this. They might make the job easier, but, ultimately, they'll produce HTML and Javascript that make use of AJAX to get the job done.

Sounds like a big job, so be sure consider appropriate server-side and Javascript frameworks, and good luck.

Answer 3

You first have to decide between HTML5/JS/CSS, Flash and Silverlight for your client technology. Consider the client machines you need to support (Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad etc.)

You then pick your server-side language/platform. AJAX is your communication medium.

If you're going with HTML5/JS/CSS you'd like to pick a JS framework to speed up development. jQuery makes for quick coding. Other frameworks may have more features but are more abstracted from plain JS. You might want to use GWT if you're more familiar with Java than Javascript.