Ui Binder Alternatives

[N Troncoso]

With GWT 3.0, Widgets and UI Binder is losing support. Even besides that, I'm not a huge fan of UI Binder. I'd really just prefer to use vanilla HTML. With that said, I've been searching for other options and I've only found that alternatives are very limited. Even more so, examples of how to integrate alternatives into GWT are basically non-existent. So, my question is, what can I use instead of Widgets and UI Binder and where can I find examples/tutorials/documentation on how to use them in GWT.

I found Errai as one option. But, this seems to be an entire framework, rather than just a template system.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Paul Stockley]

One option when 2.8 is released would be to use GWT React (https://github.com/GWTReact/gwt-react). React is a good substitute for the view layer and can be integrated with existing widgets so you can migrate your way to a UiBinderless approach.

[Kay Pac]

I don't want to start a huge discussion necessarily but are Widgets really losing support?

[Gilberto]

Nobody really knows how GWT 3 will be for sure, but I assume GWT 3.0 will be less of a framework and more of a transpiler from Java to Javascript, which other frameworks will be built on top of it.

So I wouldn't expect a simple template engine to replace UiBinder, but full featured frameworks. You'll have to choose one or implement your own.

But that's for 3.0.

Meanwhile, I see Errai as a very good option, since you can use the HTML template right from your designers, with minimal-to-none modifications to link with your logic code. That's something pretty hard to achieve with UiBinder.

[Alain Ekambi]

Errai is the best. Point. Period.

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Alain Ekambi

Co-Founder

Ahomé Innovation Technologies

http://www.ahome-it.com/

[Paul Stockley]

I think there is a good chance that Widgets / UiBinder in some form could get ported to GWT 3.0. Probably not by google and probably in separate projects from the main GWT compiler stack.

[zakaria amine]

Elemento project sounds like an intersting alternative: https://github.com/hal/elemento

[James Horsley]

Something like Elemento + Elemental 2 seems like a great lightweight choice in the future.

FWIW I agree with Paul that UiBinder plus some top layer of the widget API (UIObject, Widget, etc.) will get ported over to work with GWT 3.0 by the community. There's no reason it can't work with Java APT + JsInterop, just needs the tech investment. I think this will be a huge help for many teams doing a gradual upgrade.

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