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JS-App

JS-App is a Javascript Application framework with which you can build rich web applications and widgets embeddable in web pages. The JS-App framework is ...

data-driven - the Widget code exists, we need only configure to use it
cross-browser - architected for maximum compatibility (versions and brands) (As many as possible: IE 4+, NS 4+, Moz/Gecko/Firefox, Opera, Safari, Konqueror)
internationalizable - a simple translation table should allow t
themeable - should reserve maximum flexibility of look and feel for the app developer
leveraged - incorporate existing (3rd party) widgets with a thin wrapper layer
object-oriented and extensible - every application requires custom widgets/logic
built around Ajax - asynchronous interaction with the server
written in Javascript - (for the framework) (+CSS)
supported by Perl - for installation, regression testing, and server-side support, but there is nothing perl-centric about JS-App. It is useful to every server-side page generation technology in existence (Jave Servlets, PHP, ASP, ...)

Framework Requirements

The js-app framework is designed to allow programs to be developed that meet the following requirements.

Rich, highly-interactive applications which give the feel of a desktop application but delivered by the web
Widget-based, Object-oriented framework
Widgets should be embeddable within a page as easily as they are used to implement an application taking up the entire page
Widgets should be useful within any other page-generation technology (JSP, ASP, PHP, SSI, Perl Mason, Perl TT, App-WidgetJS, CGI.pm, etc.)
Cross-browser (type and version) (as much as possible) with graceful degradation allowed for convenience features
Internationalizable (translation dictionary, content encoding)
Themeable (based on CSS)
Data-driven application development
Supports asynchronous event dispatching and callbacks
Employs JSON-RPC (XMLHttpRequest/iframe) for server interaction
Built-in Timer/Scheduler
Bookmark-ability: access to any widget and session state encoding
Support printing (via separate CSS style sheet?)
Support for Sessions that makes sense (stored in a cookie?)
Support for Bookmarks/Favorites
Support for Bug submission (to drive a regression test with libjs?)
Support templates in every widget
Framework version support (About box)
Support light-weight widgets
Framework needs a style guide

Project Requirements

Name: js-app (or JS-App)
Pure Javascript (with css/js/png resources) but includes Perl installer and reference server interface programs.
Stand on the shoulders of as many other projects as we can find. (probably meaning using their code)
Regression testable manually with many sample html files
Needs browser compatibility database and collection system
Regression testable with perl Javascript (libjs.a) and DOM::Mozilla modules
Hosted on SourceForge
Licensed as LGPL
Announced on Freshmeat
Distributed on CPAN with a Build.PL (App::Build) installer
Distributed on theoryx via PPM
Project includes core and extended subprojects (i.e. js-app, js-app-security, etc.)

Nice to have.

Limited local storage in cookies (?!?) (Preferences/Settings?)
Supports an interactive screen-builder
Standard regression test database application
Theme generation tool (requires theme-neutral image resources)

Background

I needed to write a rich web application using Javascript/DHTML and searched for a good framework. I found a variety of miscellaneous Javascript/DHTML widgets (menus, navbars, treeviews, grids, date selection calendars), but no general application development framework which ties it all together.
There is a lot of hoopla these days about Google's DHTML-driven apps and Ajax techniques. I need a good way to build a complete application in Javascript which addresses the full range of application concerns.