Business application frameworks

[CrystalCMS]

Hi all,

I currently in the process of reviewing business application frameworks for use in a new application and I thought I'd field the question here to see what people are using and what the general opinion is about what's good.

The general requirements are that I'm looking for something that:

Gives a web application a professional look and feel
Maybe provides a menu system for accessing application parts
Supports existing developed content that is planned to be used for application elements within the system
Supports standard web forms, Silverlight and JS content
Supports role based security
Is perhaps AJAX based for a great user experience
Could be open source but can also be used in a commerical app


So far I've seen www.codeplex.com/dropthings and this does look very good, but I'm not sure it's right for a business application and is maybe better suited to a dashboard type of web application.

Any input anyone? Thanks in advance!
Joe

[wisemx]

...Just a few notes, not much value here, below. ;-)

1) Dropthings is very cool and I've seen some cool "junk" done with it.
It appears to be dormant right now, with good reason I'd say, too much new Msft tech coming out at the same time.
2) Take a look at these links, you should find them interesting.
http://blogs.msdn.com/jim.prussack/archive/2009/11/06/silverlight-ie8-web-version-of-cheesesteak-wit.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/innov8showcase/archive/2009/10/28/ihi-shines-silverlight-on-healthcare-improvement.aspx
All the best,
Mark

[CrystalCMS]

I agree and that pretty much sums it up for me so far as the drop things project goes. Although it's undoubtedly an impressive piece of work, I agree that it is dormant at the moment (having already asked this question myself on codeplex).

I'm also convinced that it's not really a business application framework but it would be really useful for portal type sites. If anyone has any examples of it being used in LOB applications, I'd be very interested to see those.

Thank you for the links to the Silverlight application. It's a nice implementation, but again not quite right for our application because it has to be a mix of Silverlight and more traditional content e.g. web forms and JS.

The search continues..

[wisemx]

...In return I totally agree mate. ;-)

[CrystalCMS]

Just a little update on the status of Dropthings. From first glance at codeplex, it did look like a dormant project however after some more research I've found that it's alive and in development over at http://code.google.com/p/dropthings/

Some more info here http://www.codeproject.com/KB/ajax/Web20Portal.aspx

I'm happy to see that Omar and the team are keeping this project live and current.

[CrystalCMS]

After another day of hunting, I canned all hope of finding a ready made solution and settled on developing my own application specific framework based around jquery / jquery.ui and the absolutely fabulous jquery.ui.layout plugin.

It really was the flexibility of jquery.ui.layout that sold it to me in the end since I'm keen on implementing an Outlook type of UI.

Cheers