There is a big difference between a website and a webapp, and deciding which is more suitable for use case is more important than choosing the technology.
*Website* is old-school. There are multiple pages, and moving from one page to another is done via hyperlinks. Websites aren't interactive, and are largely content driven. A website has information to share, and hence SEO becomes important. Blogs, newspapers and forums, corporate websites are great examples. *Webapps* are the new trend. They typically have just a single page. Multiple views are simulated using javascript and DOM manipulation. History and backbutton support are achieved by tricking the browser via fragment identifiers. Webapps are usually interactive; user performs actions and site responds quickly. Webapps are typically personalized for a user, and hence SEO doesn't matter much. Gmail, Wave, Facebook are great examples of webapps. You have to decide whether you need a Content-driven Website or an interactive, personalized Webapp. Nobody can help you there. Once you have made the decision, it becomes very simple. If your requirements tend towards a Website, use server-side technologies like JSP/Spring Webflow. Then use a js library like JQuery or YUI (or whatever) and progressively enhance it to get a richer experience. DO NOT attempt to build such a website using GWT; you are going to be dissatisfied with the outcome. Although GWT has support for history, backbutton and SEO, its a lot easier to get it right using traditional technologies. But if what you want is more like a webapp, welcome to GWT! URLs can still be bookmarkable - only they will end in #profile, #community and #videos. History management comes automatically if you have bookmarkable urls. To make it seo friendly, read the Ajax Crawling article<http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/>. Mixing JSP's and GWT is possible but in general a bad idea, because multiple jsps are an indication that you want a website. More importantly, loading a GWT module is expensive, and you only want to do that once per user session. There are ways to overcome the problems you mention using both technologies. The decision to use a particular technology should be based on your requirements (website v/s app), and not on the specific problems you have enumerated. --Sri On 1 June 2010 21:32, ping2ravi <ping2r...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi All, > I am trying to create a website and stuck with confusion over whether > to use GWT for presentation or JSP based framework like Spring MVC. I > want UI to be very user friendly,faster etc and this is possible with > GWT. But following problem comes with GWT > > 1) Book marking of any page. As GWT is suppose to be one url > application and everything should come under it. But how i will solve > the problem if i have a site like Facebook, where url can be for User > profile(/profile/1), My Home(/home), community(/cpmm),video(/video) > etc. I can solve it by using one html and keeping everything as > params(i.e. /myapp.htm?type=profile&id=1) but then i feel its not how > GWT should be used or is this the only way i will be able to use it. > > 2) Not searchable by Search Engines. Search engine can not see what > the content is as it always comes through RPC calls. > > 3) Implementing History is Overhead, if i fix the issue 1 > > 4) Its not possibkle to mix jsps and GWT. I tried but GWT css start > interfaring with my CSS, first starting with changing background > color. > > > > But i still like GWT but not sure how i will solve these problems. > > Any suggestions/comments most welcome. > > Thanks, > Ravi > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google Web Toolkit" group. > To post to this group, send email to google-web-tool...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<google-web-toolkit%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. To post to this group, send email to google-web-tool...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit?hl=en.
