Question

we are currently in the process of analyzing different JS and web-frameworks.
We would like to build a DHTML application where you can replace / load content into the website at runtime.

For example:
There is only a “main.html” (or at least one that looks like being a single HTML file for externals) and inside that file I would like to load a login form at runtime.
But WITHOUT page refresh.
I would like to load the HTML into the website dynamically.
http://api.jquery.com/load/ seems to be perfect for that.

However we are also considering using Apache Wicket.
Does Wicket provide a similar mechanism? For me it seems like Wicket can define “static” parts in the website but it does heavily rely on page-refresh to update the website.

Also as a Wicket “newbe” I wonder why there are quite only a few UI components documentated on the Wicket website compared to other UI frameworks.
For me it seems like most people use Wicket + jQuery but never Wicket standalone.

As we already have a REST interface available I wonder what Wicket would offer us at all compared to for example Apache Velocity.

Thanks!
Sebastian

Answer 1

So called single page applications (a single page who’s components get constantly replaced and/or updated via ajax) are the way almost every Wicket Apllication I wrote up till now turned out. Most of the Wicket Applications I saw out there relied on a very small number of (or just one) page(s).

The real big advantage of Wicket above jQuery in these use cases is the way in which Wicket offers a non-javascript fallback (then relying on page refreshes) with very little additional work (replacing AjaxLinks by AjaxFallbackLinks and adding an if-statement to check which refresh was triggered.