Client User Interface on Web

There are so many different javascript framework available for download. To name a few prototype, dojo, yui.... etc. The list goes on. I've been using prototype for quite a while and like it. The $ function, some of the DOM, event and array functions are quite easy to use.

Now I'm looking for something that can help me build a client like application on browser. Dojo provide a lot of building client like functions, eg. browser windows, menu bar, just to name a few. YUI is gaining a lot of reputation for their set of library. So which is better? Or should I stick to prototype & scriptaculous?

I ended up giving dojo a try. Dojo definitely have quite a lot of build in functions. But it's quite heavy too. The full dojo.js compress is 127 KB. That doesn't take into consideration of the many different library that need to be imported for different functions.

First impression, documentation is needs to be improved. I can't find offline documentation that can be downloaded. The API doc and the manual is all online. But I still gave it a further look.

Going through some of the examples, I found something that I can start with. I like the ContainerPane and the SplitPane. I can build layout without worrying about the CSS of the different panes in a page. The spilt pane provide resizable panel. That's nice.

Then I jump to AJAX calls. Dojo provide an IO library for that. Dojo even provide crossed domain AJAX calls through IFrame I/O. What I like is the form submission. That's what's I was looking for.Lotus Notes form itself have the required submission action url. Using dojo.io, AJAX posting of the form can directly use the existing url. This is convenient.

Using both function above, a view with preview pane can be created similar like in LN Client. user can browse through the view documents without refreshing the page. The document can be set editable and save within the same page. I'll be drafting the steps to create the example describe above. Keep a look out.