I want to build a Web App with Rails.... What to use for the Client Layer?

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hello, I'm building a web app that I want to have a feel like GMAIL.

I have Rails 3 setup for all the backend, restful type services... But I want it to be a web app and not a web page. What are some client- side type frameworks I should be thinking of? not like a JQUERY but more like a sproutcore? Is there anything type of framework Rails developers use to have slick Web APps, so clicking links does not reload the entire page, etc.. etc...

Thanks!

2

Hello, I'm building a web app that I want to have a feel like GMAIL.

Why?

http://www.google.com/search?q=gmail+clone

I have Rails 3 setup for all the backend, restful type services... But I want it to be a web app and not a web page. What are some client- side type frameworks I should be thinking of? not like a JQUERY but more like a sproutcore? Is there anything type of framework Rails developers use to have slick Web APps, so clicking links does not reload the entire page, etc.. etc...

You can build an entirely non-page-reloading site using just Rails with jQuery.

Sproutcore seems very nice, but is overkill for most of my projects.

3

Greg, GMAIL like not a GMAIL clone, not anything related to an EMAIL app.. thxs

4

What do you people think about Netzke ?

Robert Pankowecki

5

the only thing prebuild that i have seen that do that , no one uses them in the public part of their site, only in the admin section check a gem called active_scaffold but i think you cant customize it much

6

What do you people think about Netzke ?

Netzke is ExtJS right? I'm not a big fan as they learning curve is insane and the bang isn't worth the time.

7

I agree. And I want my tools to be more generic than that.

8

I suppose you're not allowed to use Flash/Flex?

For non-Flash, moderately rich UI, I'm pretty happy with some of the YUI (Yahoo User Interface) widgets and libraries.

You might also consider GWT. If you know that you're building a big fat (rich) client, it might be worth having a comprehensive IDE with debugging goodness that GWT offers.