Name: Dojo Toolkit
URL: http://dojotoolkit.org
Native Server Environment: none
Included Widgets: Fisheye, TabPanels, Containers, Title Panels, Menus, Buttons, Form Elements, Rich Text Editor, Data tables, Trees, Layout Widgets,
Download Size: 6.5 mb (build directory)

YUI or the Yahoo! User Interface Libary. Is one of the most used toolkits on the market today. Because free hosting for the toolkit is provided by Yahoo on its content distribution network, download times can be dramatically reduced for end users. This is especially true if the user already has a copy of the toolkit cached from visiting one of the myriad of Yahoo or third party sites that use the library.

The library itself is capable and easy to work with. It doesn’t go to great effort to abstract away core javascript functionality. It also does a remarkable job of providing complex capabilities with a reasonably simple and fine grained approach. The library doesn’t rely on monolithic JS files or complex syntax and there for is highly approachable for the novice developer.

Some Highlights

• Incredibly Rich Widget set available
  
• Capable of converting static html to dhtml widgets on the fly
  
• Amazing Graphic capabilities with SVG & Charting support
  
• Allows JS applications to be built without coding html layouts.
  
• Powerful system for deploying custom widgets
  
• Data abstraction tools
  
• Offline Storage capability
  

Some Drawbacks

• Skinning may require creation of custom widgets
  
• Dependence on 3rd party software for some libraries (Flash widgets, Dojo Offline uses Google Gears)
  
• Large library size on initial download
• Compression & packaging tools can be cumbersome.
• Steep Learning Curve & Occaisonally unique syntax