A "JTable" clone in javascript
I saw this announced on freshmeat and found it interesting. It's written in pure javascript and runs across browsers. And, it causes me to write again about the rich client experience.The look is similar to the JTable, but the functionality is nowhere the same. For example, while you can click on column titles to sort the table by the column, you can't drag column titles to rearrange the table, nor can you resize rows or columns by dragging. Still, it looks to be a pretty convenient way to put a table in a web page and have a little more interaction than the HTML TABLE element allows.
For example, on twiki sites if you build a table, clicking on a column header lets you sort the table by that column. But to do so means a round-trip between the browser and the wiki software so the wiki software can reformat the whole page with the table sorted a different way. THis is very wasteful because it makes the user wait.
The rich client story is to do that sorting in the client. A rich client knows a little more about what the data is, and can act directly on the data in a rich way. For example a Swing rich client knows it has a JTable, it has a TableModel full of data, and it has some nice interactions it can offer the user depending on how the JTable is configured. Similarly the OS3Grid thingy has a data model and can offer some nice interactions.
But with the current incarnation this OS3Grid thingy is less capable than the Swing JTable.
The question, I suppose, is whether JTable's extra capability makes a difference. A developer wanting to display a fancy table that has a good user experience, could write a simple APPLET and use the JTable. But is the extra capability in JTable important to the end user? Or is the OS3Grid thingy good enough? And can it improve over time to take on more and more capabilities? How close can it get to JTable?
(2005-04-25 09:01:06.0) Permalink Comments [0]
