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ZK is Ajax framework enriching Web apps with little programming. With event-driven and markup languages, development is as simple as programming desktops and authoring HTML/XUL pages. ZK supports scripting language including Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Groovy…

ZK is an open source Web development framework that enables Web applications to have both rich user experiences and low development cost as you did for years in desktop applications. ZK includes an Ajax-based event-driven engine, rich sets of XUL and XHTML components, and a markup language.

• The event-driven engine brings the intuitive desktop programming model to Web developers.
• The XUL and XHTML components enrich Web applications by off-the-shelf building blocks.
• The markup language, called ZUML, makes the design of rich user interfaces as simple as authoring HTML pages.

There are more than a dozen of frameworks for developing Web applications. Why bother to have another?

The short answer is that they are either too limited to deliver the rich user experiences, or too complex and costly to develop a Web application.

What are the goals of the ZK project?

• The same or better rich and interactive user interfaces as that of desktop applications.
• The same or better simplicity to develop Web applications as that of desktop applications.
• A good architecture and community to encourage collaboration.

What is the current status? Is it really simple and rich?

Download and try it. Judge for yourself.

• Over 70 XUL and 80 XHTML components are supported, including list boxes, tree, drag-and-drop, auto-completion, sliders, timer, combo boxes, audio and many others.
• Server centric. Visual representation and content are synchronized automatically between clients and servers.
  The best way to use Ajax is not to know its existence.
• Script in Java and EL expressions. No JavaScript. No compilation. No proprietary expressions or scripts.
• Simple threading model. No prerequisite of handling threading and concurrent accesses. Yet no limitation to apply any sophisticated threading on your demand.
• Flexible threading model. Easy to suspend and resume your application without blocking users. Supports true server-side modal dialogs.
• Easy to develop new components with supports of template and synchronization technologies.
• Easy to encapsulate a pure-client JavaScript widget into a server-centric Java component, such as FCKeditor and Dojo.
• Easy to power applications with versatile components, as simple as dropping jar files into the class path.
• An open community to share components, themes and utilities.
• Zero configurations and compilation. Maintaining ZUML pages is as easy as maintaining HTML pages.
• No prerequisite of any design patterns. For fast protyping, you could embed Java codes directly in ZUML pages. For sophisticated applications, you could apply MVC or others. The choice is yours, not framework.

What browsers are supported?

ZK supports Internet Explorer 6+/7, Firefox 1+, Safari 2+, Mozilla 1+, Opera 9+ and Camino 1+.

What servers are supported?

ZK runs on any Web server that supports Servlet 2.3+ and JVM 1.4+.