I am evaluating possibilities to create mobile hybrid Apps with GWT and Apache Cordova / PhoneGap. I already build a small prototype with mgwt and liked it, but I would like to research a few other possibilities before starting the project. Therefore I took a look at Vaadin and its AddOn Touchkit.
I have the following questions:
Is it possible to use the Vaadin Touchkit Addon in a Client-Side Application which does not need a permanent server connection?
In the mobile chapter of the documentation an example is shown that is a Server-Side Application, as far as I understand it and therefore would need a server connection for each UI event. Please correct me if I’m wrong, I have no experience with Vaadin.
Is there any difference between a “normal” GWT App and a Client-Side Vaadin App?
Does it has any advantages to use Vaadin Touchkit instead of mgwt?
In general is Vaadin Touchkit comparable to mgwt and if yes which are the main differences?
The main focus in Vaadin TouchKit has so far been to add components and tools relevant for touch optimised UI’s to “traditional Vaadin” - secure, simple and fast to develop server side UI library.
Still, in theory client side counter parts for Vaadin TouchKit components can be used in pure client side apps. You can find a minimalistic usage example from out offline mode example. You should look at V7 branch (TouchKit 3). Documentation and javadocs for this are still very spartan and thus we haven’t yet emphasised TouchKit as client side library. We’ll probably get there later this year once we get new “cross platform theme” and Windows 8 support tackled.
Practically no. Vaadin has its “fork” of GWT, but practically there are no differences currently. If you develop client side apps using Vaadin libraries, you’ll get extra stuff on your class path (“server connectors” and all Vaadin’s client side components) but that shouldn’t do any harm.
Those are different beast. When considering pure GWT development I think we have more fine tuned theme (mimics iOS), but generally for pure client side development mgwt is more versatile at this point. That has been that projects goal. If you haven’t bought our promise of efficient server side development model, your choice shall be mgwt at this point.