What is the best view layer for Spring 3?

17
votes

I'm investigating presentation layers to be used with spring in our new project. I'm coming from PHP+Prado and want to move to something what is as simple as Prado and more powerfull than PHP.

I like Spring 3 and Spring MVC. It's very simple to learn and start working with. But I'm looking for "view framework" better than simple jsp. I need simple components as Datagrids, Lists, Trees drag-and-drop supported. I've created SpringMVC+Spring Web Flow 2 + Spring Faces + JSF configuration but it's very complicated to create simple things there. I need something simpler.

Do You have any ideas ?

7
javaspringjspjsfspring-mvc
For those who are interested - the winner is Vaadin – Piotr Gwiazda
I know this is an old post, but can you elaborate on why it won out over the others? – Andy
It won mostly because there is no need of HTML and CSS knowledge and you can build rich, desktop-like interface in Java just like in Swing. It was perfectly meeting our needs. – Piotr Gwiazda
Perfect. Thanks for answering. :-) – Andy
Vaadin website needs fixing, lots of server errors at present. – Fuzzy Analysis

7 Answers

12
votes

In Java EE there are currently only 2 view technologies: JSP and Facelets. JSP is old and about to retire. Facelets is newer and better and designed with JSF in mind so that they both fits smoothly in each other.

But Spring MVC and JSF are in fact competitors. They both have roughly the same goals and purposes. You should use the one or the other and not mix up them. Mixing two or more MVC frameworks in one page ain't going to work flawlessly. You can however use Spring as DI and/or Security framework in combination with JSF as MVC framework. Spring offers much more than only MVC.

Components like Datagrids, Lists, Trees drag-and-drop supported are not all available in the basic JSF Component implementation. For that you'll need a component library such as PrimeFaces.

See also

4
votes

I've used Jboss Seam + Richfaces for the last 3 years and find them both useful, but if I were you I'd also check out the Play Framework. It has Spring support and combined with jQuery UI or ExtJS you would get a very simple but highly effective environment. Certainly one reminiscent of developing in PHP from a speed point of view.

3
votes

If you want those sort of rich controls, then some kind of JSF framework is the way to go. The standard JSF framework is rather poorly designed and inelegant, though.

You should have a look at JBoss Seam as an alternative. It's a top-to-bottom web framework that uses EJB3 and JSF, and it's pretty well integrated, making JSF a lot easier than it would otherwise be.

It's not Spring-based, though, so if your heart is set on Spring, then you need to look at other JSF implementations such as RichFaces.

Spring WebFlow probably isn't necessary for you at all, so I;d ignore that unless you have a good reason.

1
votes

Jboss Seam offers all that you want. It works with Spring, but provides lot of inbuilt features by itself.

1
votes

A very powerful and light-weight MVC action based framework is Stripes, give it a try!

1
votes

Angular or GWT could also be an alternative with proper usage.

1
votes

As you are coming from PHP, JSP is probably a more suitable view technology than JSF

If you have to use Spring, use Spring 4 (not 3)

Checkout Spring Boot for more rapid development etc..

If you are developing a web application, and SEO isn't important, I would personally go down the Single Page Root with a Javascript Framework + Restful web services. I notice you mention Spring WebFlow + Components. My opinion is these are too heavyweight

If SEO is important, then checkout the Play Framework (I prefer Scala version) with SSP (Scala Server Pages).