Google Web Toolkit - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Web_Toolkit

http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/overview.html

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is an open source Java software development framework that allows web developers to create Ajax applications in Java. It is licensed under the Apache License version 2.0.

Using GWT, the developers can rapidly develop and debug AJAX applications in the Java language using the Java development tools of their choice. When the application is deployed, the GWT compiler translates the Java application to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML.

A command-line utility shipped with GWT, applicationCreator, automatically generates all the files needed to start a GWT project. It can also generate Eclipse project files. Several open-source plugins are available for making GWT development easier with IDEs. E.g., GWT4NB for NetBeans, Cypal Studio for GWT for Eclipse, gwtDeveloper for JDeveloper etc.

Features

• Dynamic and reusable UI components: programmers can use pre-designed classes to implement otherwise time-consuming dynamic behaviors, such as drag-and-drop or sophisticated visual tree structures.^[4]
• Simple RPC mechanism
• Browser history management
• Support for full-featured Java debugging.^[3]
• GWT handles all cross-browser issues for the developer.^[3]
• JUnit integration
• Easy internationalization
• The developers can mix handwritten JavaScript in the Java source code using the JavaScript Native Interface (JSNI).
• Support for using Google APIs in GWT applications (initially, support for Google Gears)
• Open-source
• The developers can design and develop their application in a pure object-oriented fashion, since they're using Java (instead of JavaScript).^[4] Common JavaScript errors (such as typos and type mismatches are caught at compile time.
• JavaScript that the GWT compiler generates is quite obfuscated or very difficult to read, which provide the application with some security and protection of proprietary material.^[4]
• A number of libraries are available for GWT, by Google and third parties. These extend GWTs features.^[4]