GWT Platform, GWT-Ext and SmartGWT [closed]

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Closed 8 years ago.

Currently we are using GWT Platform with MVP architecture for our UI development. I could see that we always get an advantage of using SmartGWT or GWT-Ext over GWT Platform because there are many built in components which are hard to write in regular GWT widgets.

I have following questions now to proceed. 1. Can we install GWT-Ext or Smart GWT over regular GWT P project and work? i.e Existing screen functionalities will remain with GWT regular widgets. But new development will be used with either Smart GWT or GWT-Ext. Will there be any conflict or issues in doing this? 2. With Smart GWT or GWT-Ext, can we still follow the same MVP framework like in GWT-Platform or we have a different mechanism for server side calls? 3. We wanted to use free licensing products. So SmartGWT and GWT-Ext are free softwares if I understand. Am I correct? 4. Now with both Smart GWT and GWT-Ext coming into picture, which one should I start using it considering, I will get more good components, faster development, good documentation help and good future for the technology. Now it is very difficult to make a choice of what to use? Please suggest.

In case if you feel, there is something else which is the best compared to these and free, you can suggest that as well.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I will conclude as below with many links, comments on my question. SmartGWT is preferable over GWT-Ext when compared to available widget libraries. Also, GWT-Ext support is not much whereas SmartGWT has enough support even now. SmartGWT is free to use. Also, we can start using SmartGWT on top of our existing GWT Platform application for our further development. With your above comments, I got to know that its not a good practice to mix GWT and SmartGWT widgets. But we can always start using all SmartGWT widgets for our new UI work. i.e You will have screen both from GWT widgets and SmartGWT widgets(Newer screens). Please confirm if my understanding is correct.

Now I have my last question which is very important - All current server calls are GWT Platform RPC calls - using GWT MVP framework. Service layer is built using GUIC framework. I would like to migrate to SmartGWT with minimal efforts. i.e Existing GWT Platform screens are kept as it is with GWT - RPC calls to GUICE servlet framework New development will be done using SmartGWT widgets, but would like to have Restful WS calls to GUICE framework. Even though SmartGWT provides data binding mechanism for better server calls, I may not be interested as we have an intention to convert all client server calls to Restful webservices with JSON. Do we have any issues in this approach where SmartGWT is used for better UI development, but with server calls being implemented using Restful Web services (JSON data format). Can somebody help me on how we can implement this behavior? I want GWT client and service to be independent(Technology independent) and hence would like to go for Restful Webservice approach for client-server communication. If we have any SmartGWT sample with restful webservice call it would be really great.