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I'm interested in putting together a web framework to emulate a desktop-like window manager. If you're asking why; the reason is that I want to create a web application that has the capabilities and look-and-feel of a desktop application, yet be portable across multiple platforms and without installing software. I'll most likely be doing this is JavaScript, possibly with the aid of jQuery. I just wanted to gauge some opinions prior to building it.

Generally, what features and/or behavior do you expect from your ideal window manager? Also, is a task like this most suited for a canvas-based implementation or a HTML element implementation?

I know there are some other options out there, but I want to create a pretty comprehensive API as a sort of gateway project. Are there any existing projects that come into mind? I know jQuery-UI is pretty popular, and I've used it occasionally.

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  • There's not really a good concise way to answer this question, in my opinion. You're asking for general feelings about window managers and also general feelings about JavaScript frameworks. Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 13:32
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    There are already libraries out there for this. ExtJs and SmartClient come to mind. Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 14:02
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    YUI has a pile of widgets too. This really smells like wheel reinvention. Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 14:05

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I am in the same position as the OP and am interested in seeing some actual responses and not criticisms of the question. There are a lot of different frameworks out there and given limited time it's not an easy thing to research.

Of course there is a concise way to answer this question: "I chose (framework X) for my last project because (reason A), (reason B), etc. and eliminated (framework Y) because (reason C)"

It's not wheel reinvention - the question is about wheel SELECTION.

I'll also add this:

jquery & plugins is great based on my experience with jquery but suffers from unified look and feel due to there not being a single library of UI plugins.

GWT is a front-runner for me right now as I'm going to use Glassfish/Java as my app server, and I'm trying to figure out how well it supports tablet clients.

Sencha/ExtJS has what I'm looking for from the perspective of all the components, but if I'm going to spend the money to get a commercial product I'd rather purchase one from adobe (AIR) or another big company that I know will be around for a longer time. I'm also concerned over the amount of structure that Sencha's proprietary MVC will constrain me to on the app server - it probably will cause me a lot of work to develop around it.

Dojo is also promising, I'm researching that further.

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