GXT vs GWT-EXT ?

[MN]

GXT and GWT-EXT looks very similar. gxt is in native gwt and gwt-ext
is a js wrapper for extjs.

but what is better?

can you please write your experiences and some main differences with
this 2 libraries? (more on the programming focus than on licence
issues)

[wt]

I just gave up on gwt-ext and switched to gxt. I was tweaking gwt-
ext's showcase example, the one with form-grid binding, and I want to
add an update button to update the changes made in the form back into
the grid. I followed the api doc and searched through their forum, but
it just didn't work; to make it worse, there is no way for me to debug
this, because in gwt-ext, almost everything is just a Java class
wrapping a JavaScript object! It's probably the most painful thing for
the Java programmers that they can't debug a program. As for actually
using the APIs, gwt-ext and gxt are pretty much the same, both follow
ExtJS's API, so it doesn't take much time to switch from one to the
other.

License: although gwt-ext is open source, you still need to pay for
the gwt-plus package, which is necessary if your client communicates
with the server through GWT RPC and costs $199, not much a difference
from a gxt single developer license.

On Sep 2, 8:06 am, MN <nietz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> GXTand GWT-EXT looks very similar.gxtis in native gwt and gwt-ext

[MN]

i just using gwt-ext.

its good to know that a later switch to gxt (if required) is not too
difficult...

[glidealong]

for our application i had tried gwt-ext first bcuz of the licensing
issues and the maturity, at that point gwtext was running 2.0.1 and
gxt was getting it's 1.0 release. so lot's of api's and
functionalities were missing in gxt compared to gxt.

but sooner than later i found out it was really thorny to debug and
modify the given sample code to get something meaningful to our
context. currently we are happily using gxt1.3 and we have been
succesfull in acheiving most of the things we wanted to achieve.

But the licensing issues is the one thing that i am not yet sure
about, whether it's gonna backfire sometime in future. But i beleive
it all depends on the way the owners of the gxt want to take it, cuz
form what i know lgpl is much riskier than gpl.

Anyway i feel gxt guys won't kill their product by doing something
silly on the license issues, that said, i meant it all depnds on the
fairness of the guys who did all these.

Hope it helps,
Hafiz

[Arthur Kalmenson]

Ext GWT or GXT as it's called, is GPL v3. Therefore, if you're using
GXT version 1.3, then you are using GPL v3 code and you cannot run
your web application without releasing the source code to it, or
getting a proprietary license. Otherwise you would be violating the
GPL license and are opening yourself up to law suits. LGPL, which is
the license that Ext and GXT used to be under, is a less restrictive
license.

I suggest you consult a lawyer to get full understanding of how the
license impacts your application before you release it.

P.S. You would have been much better off without GXT or GWT-ext, both
are poorly put together libraries. You could have achieved similar
effects with regular GWT and some nice CSS.

Regards,
--
Arthur Kalmenson