Google Web Toolkit: Not bad. Consider Echo.
If you develop Java-based web apps, you probably already know about Google Web Toolkit. It’s a GUI framework of sorts for developing AJAX web apps. Google’s own blog gives a nice quick overview.
It’s nice of them to offer this up, and it’s certainly quite nifty. But it’s not exactly a home run. In particular, I found myself scratching my head at the inclusion of some of the old-school, Swing style layouts.
If you’re looking for an alternative, you should check out Echo. In my opinion, Echo gives your web apps more of a desktop feel, and something like GWT gives it more of an AJAXy feel. There’s also a sweet visual editor plugin for Eclipse that makes GUI development a lot easier.
Disclaimer: I used to work with/for the lead developer of Echo, though I never contributed any code to the project. I don’t code Java full-time anymore and I don’t receive any compensation for recommending Echo.
