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I'm being a ASP.NET developer over years but recently I started to work with some PrimeFaces solutions with JSF 2.0. I haven't nothing to complain about it.
It is worth emphasizing a few points that did me likes the PrimeFaces: many components, easy to use, fully based on jQuery and jQuery UI (which are very important to me) and very focused on web standards (even more important to me).
But there are some cases that I would really want my server-side with ASP.NET. I don't want to start a discussion here about advantages between JSP and ASP.NET, both has many motives to be used.
Well, the standard ASP.NET components aren't jQuery based, aren't themable with jQuery UI Themes, aren't fully based on web standards (a big problem) and the variability is much more simple (there aren't Carousel, Accordion, Captcha, Slider, Spinner, etc, etc, etc).
EDIT
Continuing the saga, the #Raynos answers inspired me to study lighter possibilities, like the suggested manos. But I really would like something a little more automated, at least in the HTML generation for common controls. Someone known working CRUD samples for manos or additional modules supporting this task?
Recalling that the main question is still open anyway: Do you know any UI Framework for ASP.NET based on the same ideas of PrimeFaces, prefered open-source like it is?
I suppose we cannot answer your question with something simple. As showed by other answers, unfortunately we don't have in ASP.NET any UI framework fully web standards based.
You surelly have that choice about not using ASP.NET but another .NET Framework based engine. I really think that ASP.NET MVC would be the more closest to JSF and so to PrimeFaces. But it haven't a large set of builtin controls based on jQuery as you liked on PrimeFaces. Also, if you only used up to now the vanilla ASP.NET, the MVC concept can be very confusing to start through a professional project.
It may be safer to continue with your technology knowledge while learning something totally new. Even so I don't indicate manos to your project, although it shows to be very light and stable. Furthermore, with it you would need to "recreate the wheel" for many tasks that ASP.NET knows to do well within the standards and such.
Based on these arguments, it seems that in your case you (or your team) is so familiar with ASP.NET that your immediate need is to use good tools to improve the shortcomings of ASP.NET on HTML5, web standards and themes. Then you don't need to change everything you knows right now, just improve what you already know (and of course we recommend that you consider these other approaches gradually).
So let a few helpful hints for you:
First read about and download a sample of a good architecture using HTML5, jQuery and jQuery UI. This post covers all those technologies and have the full source code to download.
Also have in mind that you don't need start your project from scratch. There is the great HTML5 BoilerPlate which comes with dozens of good pratices (and a nice Web.config created with many nice ideas). Important note that it's also based on jQuery as you want.
Maybe you already have some incredible themes created for PrimeFaces and you would like to use on your ASP.NET projet. Then remember: to take advantage of the jQuery UI Themes you just needs using class names and DOM hierarchy. If your PrimeFaces Complex DataTable gerenates an incredible HTML which is so beautifull with your CSS, just use the same generated HTML inside a UserControl so you can reuse it around all yours pages without needing rewriting all the HTML.
Also remember that PrimeFaces is opensource and because of it you always can open the sources, read the jQuery codes and reuse what you really think are perfect for you.
Then, finally, there are many tools and approaches to support you enjoy what you've done with PrimeFaces and also enjoy your existing knowledge in ASP.NET. Unfortunately we don't have done something like this to ASP.NET, but maybe what you'll do will be so good that you can publish opensource for everyone?
PrimeFaces for ASP.NET is announced. http://blog.primefaces.org/?p=2128
Sounds like you need ASP.Net MVC instead of ASP.Net Web Forms, this gives you much more control.
You have the asp.net mvc html helpers toolkit, see: http://weblogs.asp.net/gunnarpeipman/archive/2010/08/16/asp-net-mvc-meets-html5.aspx
I'm not aware of great open-source .NET integrated UIs, but Telerik RadControls are themeable (sp?), standards compliant, integrated with ASP.NET, and built with jQuery. They are really great if you have a few hundred dollars to burn.
Otherwise, AjaxControlToolkit is integrated with ASP.NET and open source but I'm not crazy about it. It's not based on jQuery but I think it is standards compliant.
Sadly, the open source communities tend to shy away from .NET (and Microsoft in general).
PrimeFaces For .NET Cancelled
PrimeFaces for ASP.NET WebForms project has been cancelled after two releases and as PrimeTek we have decided not to do further investments. Instead of .NET, our secondary focus will be PrimeUI who is very close to 1.0 release already and can be used with any web framework.
You can check out the PrimeUI library which is:
a collection of rich javascript widgets based on jQuery UI. PrimeUI is a spin-off from the popular JavaServer Faces Component Suite, PrimeFaces.
I need to learn a language for writing web applications (not websites!).
After some research in google and stackoverflow I ended up that the choice should fall in:
1) Ruby + Rails
2) Python + Django
3) c# + ASP.NET
For sure even pickng one randomly would not be a bad choice, but my question here is specific to UI controls. I come from the win32 developmenet world, so in my past experience I was in sites like DevExpress and Telerik that sell ASP.NET (or silverlight) controls like advanced grids, scheduling components, treelists...
So ASP.NET is covered, since Ruby/Python for me currently are totally unknown can you please shed some light on the UI side? I mean how in those worlds UI controls are managed? Where to find them?
All is done using libraries like ExtJS or JQuery? How does it work? (it is a newbie question, so forgive the over-simplicistic approach).
Ruby on Rails is a server-side framework that processes HTTP requests and responds with HTML†. It doesn't have any concept of the kind of UI controls that you're referring to.
However, it can integrate with JavaScript frameworks such as ExtJS or jQuery and there are some Rails plugins or RubyGems that make this integration work easier. For example, this Railscast shows an example of using a calendar within a Rails application.
†Usually HTML. It can also respond with XML, JSON, text or whatever you like really.
HTML only provides some "default controls". Such as dropdowns, buttons, hiperlinks and checkboxes.
More elaborated controls such as grids or treelists have to be built on top of the page using a combination of javascript and images. There are several libraries out there for doing so, my favourite one being jquery UI.
Ruby + Rails doesn't include any complex UI elements "out of the box" (just plain controls), but including jquery UI (or any other javascript library) isn't really very difficult.
I don't have much experience with Python and Django, but it is more or less the same history: they don't come with "advanced controls" by default; they just provide the regular html controls.
I have even less experience with ASP.NET. It could very well come with a UI library - you would have to look at it.
I've got a couple other remarks: you might be giving too much importance to UI elements. What differences a web application from a web site is not the fact that it uses this or that control; It's the stuff that happens on the server side. Which is, probably, where you will spend most of your time developing stuff.
With this in mind, I recommend you to re-think your question. Instead of asking yourself "what gives me more UI elements more easily" ask yourself "what gives me an easier time developing the server side".
My answer to that second question is, "probably Ruby on Rails". The amount of things it comes with may not be evident at first, but it enforces lots of good practices - from naming conventions, to testing, to unobstrusive javascript (that one on rails 3.0 mostly). The list just keeps going on. And on top of that, its community is fantastic.
In any case, please note that this is just my opinion and that I'm not very experienced on the other 2 systems - I just gave them some exploratory looks. You should check it with other sources.
If you're already familiar with C# and ASP.NET, why not use that?
Of course if you know Python, the Django docs are a good great place to start. Even if you don't know Python they'll at least give you an idea about what it will take to learn/use Python+Django.
HTH!
I have to present a prototype of an web app in the following days to one of my clients, the thing is I'm not so good at CSS and worst of all I'm almost never happy with the results I get.
Coding the business logic poses no challenge to me, the UI design however takes more than 80% of my time. I don't need nothing breathtaking, just a clean, nice and presentable environment, an example:
This is a recurring problem I've been having, I wish web UI development could have a less naked default style, an approach similar to Visual Studio or iPhone SDK would be very useful to me.
The above mockup created with Balsamiq Mockups is a great example, all the most common "components" are available to use, and best of all: there is only one good-looking style to choose from.
Is there something like this for the web? A neutral yet nice CSS or Javascript UI framework?
Options so far:
Bootstrap
Qooxdoo
jQuery UI
jQuery Tools
MochaUI
Ext JS
Yahoo! User Interface Library
BlueTrip
BluePrint
Uki (Demo)
Napkee
YAML
Baseline
iPlotz
Sproutcore
ForeUI
I'm interested in knowing if there are any CSS-only UI frameworks.
I found this page with a very nice list of Web UI Libraries, but most of them (at least the good ones) seem to be specific to Java, are there any equally good alternatives in pure CSS or JS?
PS: I'm not interested in AJAX, effects, behaviors and so on... my main (only) concern is style.
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!
After a very careful consideration of all the UI libraries suggested, I've come to the conclusion that ExtJS and Qooxdoo are the ones that most closely fit my needs. jQuery UI seems promising but only offers a reduced amount of elements.
As far as CSS-only libraries go I've found BlueTrip / BluePrint and the themes suggested by tambler to be the best. Aside from that, Flex and Napkee also seem to be worth exploring.
Time to learn ExtJS now! =)
A combination of 960gs for layout and jQuery-UI for styling is probably what you are after.
You could also consider the blueprint CSS framework instead of 960gs.
I can't believe nobody has mentioned:
http://www.extjs.com/
Its a commercial js frameworks, but pretty affordable, and makes putting together a nice UI a breeze. There's a much more complete set of elements then jqueryui, and its designed to make an entire app. I've only played with it a little, but I really love it so far. Free for personal use.
If you really want to get a feel for a complete UI developed with EXT, try this url:
http://docs.sencha.com/extjs/4.2.1/extjs-build/examples/feed-viewer/feed-viewer.html
What about using dojo and dijit?
Dijit is a fast way to create widgets and elements. It also comes with 3 default themes which are easy to modify.
A good list of different widgets here
Pair up with someone who specializes in UI design.
If you are better at dealing with business logic, your time is better off spent exclusively coding business logic so you can master it. This will require you to learn how to interface with someone else who excels at presentation. (xml and json are common means)
Business logic and presentation are very different. Designing a system that not only looks good, but is intuitive and easy to use is quite difficult. Equally as difficult and time-consuming as establishing the inner workings of a complex application.
A good interface is not as simple as including a css framework.
I consider myself to be a more 'creative' programmer who does excel in presentation. I happened to be lucky enough to cross path's with someone who was, first of all... very motivated, and second of all very good at 'business logic'. He had a lot more experience planning and implementing complex systems, while I mainly have been focusing on interface design.
If you are more productive doing system architecture, planning, developing, whatever... you should push yourself in that direction. While solo development projects can be rather fulfilling, I view it as inefficient. It is very rare that someone possess skills to develop top-level applications solo.
The challenge is finding someone who you work well with.
Check out Google Web Toolkit. It has a pretty clean default look. They have examples . In particular, their Showcase example demonstrates all of the available widgets and the css styling used to achieve the look.
There are a few frameworks aimed at (G)UI Design; Qooxdoo, JQuery UI and MochaUI being a few of them (although the last is more a proof-of-concept than a usable framework). These frameworks usually offer a variety of JS-powered elements (form elements, such as input fields and submit buttons, but other elements like tabs as well). However, it will still be up to you to position these elements, and perhaps style them, to your liking.
Perhaps familiarizing yourself with a CSS framework (such as 960GS) might complement the above JS UI Frameworks.
(As a personal disclaimer; I have very little experience with any of the frameworks mentioned above. But I'm sure either Google or SO can provide answers I can't.)
This won't help you out for your current project, but it's worth considering for future projects. After spending many years creating GUI applications in HTML 4 and constantly wrestling against the limitations of CSS and HTML, I thought I'd try out Adobe Flex. What an improvement!
Rather than faking a tabbed page control or data grid, with Flex or Silverlight, your markup can simply specify a tabbed page control or data grid. And the frameworks come with default styles that are boring but not at all bad. I'm not saying these completely replace HTML, but if you need widgets and GUI layout, I believe they're a much better alternative.
You might consider browsing the following site:
http://themeforest.net/category/site-templates/admin-skins
There are several "Administrative" themes available for purchase here that may suit your needs.
wireframe mockups like that are a brilliant way to start.
Having used most of the UI framewroks discussed here, I'd liek to steer you towards jQueryUi for the following reasons:
jQueryUI CSS framework takes care of the consistent and cool looking CSS for you (it's really easy - just make some markup and apply the classes)
jQueryUI has tabcontrol, and heaps on neat quick easy ways to style forms.
If you are targeting modern, non IE, browsers, then you should check out Sproutcore. For mockups I use mockingbird.
A relatively new PHP framework specifically designed for development of UI-focused software. Elements you have here including Tabs, Filters and Grids are included and will take you about 20 lines of code to implement.
http://agiletoolkit.org/
Have you tried Axure? It's a tool for rapidly creating wireframes, prototypes and specifications for applications and web sites.
It works in a similar way to Balsamiq, but it allows you to export your wireframes/prototype as HTML, CSS and Javascript.
You can then upload this to a server or run it on your computer as a working example.
You can create forms, links, tabs, rollovers, Javascript effects.
If you are already using Balsamic Mockups for your prototypes then you should consider Napkee. To quote the website "Napkee lets you to export Balsamiq Mockups to HTML/CSS/JS and Adobe Flex 3 at a click of a button."
I ran into this awhile ago, and couldn't find anything, so I took it as an opportunity to learn css. But since then it seems great strides have been made towards this subject.
Summarizing your problem, there is a wikipedia page.
There is yaml-css, which takes yaml and turns it into css
There is baseline, but it assumes some css knowledge.
I'd also suggest looking at Adobe's Dreamweaver. They have a lot of css and style generation tools which produce very readable and w3c compatible code.
I hope that helps.
A combination of 960gs for layout and jQuery-UI or Jquery tools is great
i use them almost in every project but i'd like to add to http://easyframework.com/
although its not a business friendly so
make sure to check out its license
but i like it
I recently discovered a nice website called iplotz.com where you can create a mockup of your application/website/project online without installing anything.
It also has most of the common controls, along with much more features for managing thw whole project and sharing it with others online.
I must admit, i didn't try it yet myself, but i looked at it a bit and it seems pretty cool. I'll probably be using it soon enough.
Sass looks like it has potential as a way to mitigate some css headaches.
I like to add Bootstrap it's intuitive, and powerful front-end framework for faster and easier web development.
I like RocketCSS. Nice clean design, give it a go.
Recently i completed on mid level web application where i have used telerik controls,
all the developers in project used native javascript functions as well as telerik
functions to work with javascript.
We faced so many cross browser issues in this approach, we have solved all the issues but i am just wondering that what should be the best approach ?
Do i need to consider JQuery for the next project for avoiding cross browser issues or there is any other option
I want my application should work perfectly in (IE 6+, FF 2+ & Chrome)
Please suggest the appropriate solution.
I prefer using jQuery. It helped me lot to develop rich applications without writing code that target each and every browser.
Also I found their documentation to be relatively simple and have a large user base which is quite an advantage for a library. Also there are plenty of plug ins that are built on top of jQuery.
If you are doing trivial amounts of JS, then a framework is usually going to be more bandwidth than it is worth. (It doesn't sound like you are, but I think it is important to get that statement out of the way first).
Once you get into serious amounts of JavaScript, then it is worth looking at the various frameworks out there.
jQuery is popular. I prefer YUI. I've heard good reports about ExtJS for projects described as "web applications". There are a number of other popular choices.
It is worth evaluating which best suits the sort of projects you are working on.
I used telerik controls in the past, and I have to say that they are quite a pain in the butt. They are very rigid and don't allow you any control. I have found that YUI provides you with a solid javascript framework that has all the features telerik offers, but with non of the limitations.
Check it out here
Most people here will suggest you use jQuery. I would suggest you sketch out your requirements and priorities before starting development on your next project and evaluating libraries based on your list of requirements. Using any large general purpose library such as jQuery or Prototype will have implications (download size/delay for user, code quality, trade-offs between generality and speed) you should be aware of before using them.
as most have already posted, it all depends on what you need to do, i used jQuery, script.aculo.us, and Mootools for some time, and for lightweight effects mootools was the most appropriate, as for support and medium sized projects jQuery. script.aculo.us is pretty usefull as it is based on prototype, but it took me some time to figure out how to actually use it effectively
I personally prefer JQuery and ASP.NET AJAX (Microsoft AJAX Library). There are so many JQuery Plug-in available which you can try them out. As for ASP.NET platform, Microsoft AJAX Library is inevitable because of its simplicity and tight integration with ASP.NET controls. Recently, JQuery has attained citizenship in Visual Studio 2008. This should also be taken into account.
I've seen a few blog posts and tutorials overviewing mixing in jQuery and the UI elements for Views in a .NET MVC web app. But usually targeted at developers with a comprehensive grasp of the full dev cycle and variations of back/middle tier technologies.
As the front end developer I'm pitching a jQuery-only UI to the back-end dev - he cautions against a non-webforms interface for sake of the code maturity pov.
I'm trying to hit back with "well...it's your pattern ...isn't it elemental to MVC? No logic in the view? I'm reading that to be 'server-side stuff'. You just serialize the properties i'm asking for, or better...let me easily discover what you _can send me...i'll be able to implement the UI via jQuery UI."
So how valid is my position?
Can jQuery's grid be expected to handle at least the bottom 85% of .net's native control (low-to-moderate capacities # of rows)?
How about in-line editing? ...from the grid?
Would working exclusively in Web Services simplify his life at all? and if so, wouldn't that be logical way to build a .net-to-jQuery relationship? - ajax liaisoning twixt server (.net WS methods) and client?
mny thx
--steve...
Don't fight the platform. That way lies pain and suffering.
The MVC view objects are vastly different than asp.net webforms with server controls--you get straight up html. You get jquery and ajax basically for free, with (almost) magic server side ajax call processing.
They are designed to do what you ask. Writing your own jquery ui is reinventing the wheel.
Not only would it be a ton of extra work for no gain. You would be the only developer around trying to do that, and when you needed help, few could offer advice.
If this is an admin interface, and the client has agreed that users must have javascript enabled then I think using javascript to build widgets on the page is a better option than using the asp.net server controls. If however this is a public facing website I would argue that a pure html and css approach is much better, and then use javascript to progressively enhance the page!
Now I dont ever advocate using asp.net server controls, because they spit out poor markup and they are overly complicated to use. Instead I have been using jQuery to do the grunt work and dom querying and traversing. I also dont advocate using jQuery UI because they are missing some very essential widgets, for example no datatable, no treeview etc. I know that there are lots of plugins for jQuery but they are not componentised and therefore each plugin needs to reinvent the wheel to achieve everything it needs. Once you have included all your plugin libraries and css you often end up with a very large page footprint. Also each plugin often has a different home page and documentation that may or may not be up to scratch.
I think that the best UI library is YUI, and you can easily combine it with jQuery. Because each widget is made up from core components the overall weight of download is smaller. Also you have all the documentation in one place with 100's of working examples. Also it means working with the same set of javascript patterns across the board, so with each widget you learn more and more about the library. Hopefully jQuery UI will catch up, but personally I am looking forward to YUI 3 which for me might mean dropping jQuery altogether...
jQuery is a very mature library. It is used by thousands of people across the internet, and I dont think I have ever encountered a bug. YUI is dogfooded by YAHOO so it too is battle hardened.
One thing I did not mention to you is that I am using the default webforms view engine with asp.net mvc. I think it is still the best option as you get intellisense and also Resharper refactoring even searches your views, and the static solution anaylsis can find code errors in your views.
For building my markup I have been using MvcContrib Fluent Html but you could also checkout this article that advocated the DRY principal very well.