Hi, Webix team! I’m a Java backend developer and am currently evaluating Webix. What puzzles me is that all the demos are based on Webix JET, such as the Doctor Appointment App. Where can I find pure Webix demos (small to medium scale projects, not simple widget samples)? Or does the team recommend Webix JET?
Greetings @LittleCricket,
We have a library of slightly interactive templates on pure Webix. More complex demos are presented on Webix Jet indeed.
Webix UI is a widget library that contains containers that allow you to control the visibility of components within them (for example, multiview or accordion).
It is also possible to dynamically replace pieces of the UI (completely destroy the target fragment and initialize a new one in its place).
With the features available in pure Webix, you can build a complex layout that will be a complete application. But at the same time, you will have to describe all the ‘navigation’, storing some kind of global application state or the dependence of the states of several widgets yourself, as well as think through the structure of the project. This may require a lot of attention and time.
Some clients use Webix in this way, but most often we are talking about long-term projects that were conceived with this architecture for quite a long time (some before the release of Jet).
But if we talk about developing an SPA from scratch with dynamic loading of entire “pages”, then the most modern/optimal solution would be to use some kind of framework for this. Webix components can be built into React/Angular/Vue, and in general into any framework: Integration with Other Frameworks, Guides Webix Docs
Webix Jet is specially designed to structure and simplify switching between large fragments of the interface itself, built on Webix.
Webix Jet is oriented on complex data management web apps, which is a relatively small part of the web. It fits for a SPA where the majority of UI is built with Webix UI widgets.
Still, it should be rather avoided for either classic multi-page apps (where content is generated on a server-side) or SPA where most of the content is a pure HTML.
To be precise, it will never be a framework on the same scale as React, but at the same time, it is initially designed for building complex apps based on Webix UI and always maintained alongside the Webix UI library (e.g. suitable for long-term usage and guarantees compatibility).