Client-side rendering is a distinct advantage for Nexaweb and its customers for three reasons, the company says.

-- Web-framework -- Client-side rendering allows developers to use any Web framework that can output text in the XML format. There are many web frameworks that have been created for J2EE (Struts, JSP/Servlets, JSTL, Tiles, Spring Webflow, JSF) and each has features and benefits that make it a good choice for developers. Nexaweb allows developers to choose the feature from each that is best for them and use those to build Web 2.0 applications.

-- Client-side processing -- Nexaweb leverages a client devices processing power to display the application. This substantially reduces server load and increases the number of users a server can support.

-- Client-side library -- Nexaweb not only renders the client but also gives developers a robust library to handle events, receive real-time data and update application state. Nexaweb's client-side library handles the synchronization of data both client-side and server-side. With Nexaweb, if you change the data, even on the server, the UI will change automatically.

"TeamQuest began researching Rich Internet Application technologies and found that the Java-based framework provided by Nexaweb was a good fit for our developers and customer base," said Tommy Frey, software engineering manager, at TeamQuest. "The extensible plug-in architecture allowed us to utilize third party Java packages for the graphical presentation of our performance data. We also took advantage of the messaging APIs within Nexaweb's Internet Messaging Bus to simplify development. Now with the support of AJAX in Release 4.5, we have additional flexibility in the future to create new applications with this technology as well, allowing us use the same unified declarative XML markup."

"Nexaweb's technology architecture has been developed with an emphasis on giving development organizations a choice as to how they implement application functionality," said Coach Wei, founder and CTO at Nexaweb. "Unlike some frameworks and commercial products that require the conversion of XML into HTML and JavaScript on the server or the compilation of XML on the server into a binary format called SWF, we don't restrict dynamic XML creation, the use of XSLT, JSP, or any other dynamic mechanisms for creating UI structures."

Additionally, Nexaweb provides a declarative mechanism to modify the user interface using a syntax called xModify. Contained within xModify is a set of instructions that tell the client how the UI is to be modified. Developers create server-side event handlers (JSP/Servlets, Struts Handlers, etc.) as they would in HTML applications but instead of responding with the complete application state, the response is a set of xModify statements that change the client to achieve the new state.

"xModify is an important feature of our product because it allows developers to process a client request on the server and respond with declarative instructions on how to change the application state declaratively," said Bob Buffone, Chief Architect at Nexaweb. "Any DOM modification that can be performed using programmatic APIs can be performed using modification instructions (append, clone, create-document, insert-after, insert-at, insert-before, remove, attribute, remove-element, replace-children, replace, set-attribute)."

Nexaweb Platform 4.5, including UCF, is generally available today. Visit Nexaweb's Development Center at: dev.nexaweb.com to download a trial version now and join Nexaweb's developer community.