# UI Libraries/Frameworks + Rails **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [June 15, 2006, 9:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ui-libraries-frameworks-rails/63523 "2006-06-15T21:50:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![surplustronics](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@surplustronics](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/surplustronics)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 9:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ui-libraries-frameworks-rails/63523/1 "2006-06-15T21:50:29Z")
For discussion… I was talking about with a colleague the other day, the single biggest problem with replacing traditional client/server apps, is the lack of a unified front end UI library. Rails is absolutely fantastic and a breath of fresh air, for doing back end work and AJAX. RJS rocks for transforming HTML elements, but one of the big stumbling blocks will be how do I simply, drop a consistently styled nav bar, tree grid etc etc on the page. ie I’m a web application developer, I don’t want to, or need to concern myself with styling/writing front end “controls”. Now I know this is not what Rails is about, nor am I asking for Rails to have ‘this’ in it. But there seems somewhat of a natural progression here… One thing my discussion buddy just pointed out to me, and that I’ve seen in the past is Backbase ([http://www.backbase.com](http://www.backbase.com)), now this is a commercial product, and therefore not part of the whole Rails / Prototype/Scriptaculous ecosystem. But what it does have is a very nice browser based UI library. > From the 5-10min look at it I’ve had, it seems to have a Javascript > rendering engine, that if supplied various tagged elements in the > backbase > format, will go and generate controls etc with on the fly. Which kinda > looks > like Flex (Flex is very hot, and if it weren’t for the astronomical > licensing fees last time I looked…), but in Javascript vs Flash. > Again > from the very brief look at it I’ve had, this looks very very nice (and > quite possibly well worth the money if I were to use it commercially), > and > I’m about to start investigating using the client side of it with Rails, > to > see how easy/complete it really is. Given the licenseing fees really > aren’t > that big it’s almost a no brainer if it does the job well. There also is these other libraries/frameworks out there around. Dojo, Yahoos little library, Qooxdoo etc But none have the completeness (yet) of Backbase - qooxdoo does look veeery interesting thought. However any of the options above feel, just somehow, well wrong. Because they’ll be tacked on to Rails, whereas they should be part of the whole ecosystem. What I’m wondering if anyone is having the same thoughts, or investigating extending Prototype/Scriptaculous into a competing arena. It certainly seems to me, what would be the finishing touch in the Rails ecosystem, for web applications (not confusing with styled/branded web sites, I’m talking about replacements for desktop apps here…). OR am I missing something here, and is something already underway out there ? And has anyone succesfully used the previously mentioned UI frameworks, in an app, with Rails. (even though, yes, it doesn’t really matter what backend you have to these frameworks) ? Cheers ## Rowan [http://raili.st](http://raili.st) ---
**Author:** ![surplustronics](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@surplustronics](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/surplustronics)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 11:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ui-libraries-frameworks-rails/63523/2 "2006-06-15T23:30:36Z")
Just my .02, but instead of trying to turn scriptaculous into a Yahoo UI, why not spend your time on a JavascriptHelper or PrototypeHelper wrapper around these libraries that are out there. There’s already a ton of them and a lot of really competent people working on them. This way you can make it “railsy” and not have to do the heavy lifting. Michael