From the Gaia website…
About Gaia Ajax Widgets Framework
Gaia Ajax Widgets is a framework built on top of the native ASP.NET server controls which means it will interact fully with the page rendering cycle. This means that you can edit properties in any widget on your page from any event handler of any widget on that same page.
Easy to use
We strongly believe that you will agree that Gaia Ajax Widgets is very easy to use! Gaia was built to mimic 100% the logic of conventional ASP.NET and basically this means that if you know ASP.NET you know how to use Gaia Ajax Widgets! Gaia Ajax Web Widgets does not have ANY cryptic properties or code model you need to learn before you can use Gaia effectively, almost none of our controls uses any other properties than the ones that comes with native ASP.NET so if you know your way around ASP.NET you know your way around Gaia! This can be seen from the fact that you don’t need to use WebServices to e.g. populate our AutoCompleter and from the event that retrieves the AutoComplete data you can do whatever you like, including for instance making a DropDownList visible or showing a modal window.
Easy to extend
Gaia is first of all about freedom to express yourself as a developer. A good example of this is our TabControl which in fact is not a TabControl but merely three buttons and a MultiView wrapped inside a Gaia.Window. And just like we have made an Ajax TabControl with 61 lines of C# code and no JavaScript at all we want you to be able to do exactly what you want to do. And if you should find the need to create a Custom ajax control, you’ll notice that you have a first class library at your fingertips for doing such a thing. You have lots of classes you can build upon. For instance if you want to create a container widget you can inherit from Gaia.Panel and save yourself LOTS of coding in addition to that you have a state of the art Client Side library for your convenience. This includes a complete OOP JavaScript WebControl hierarchy in addition to prototype.js and ScriptAculous.
Lightweight
Gaia Ajax Widgets mirrors the whole ASP.NET WebControl hierarchy on a demand basis meaning that the bandwidth consumed in a Gaia application will be far less than the bandwidth consumed in most other Ajax Frameworks. If you use e.g. FireBug in FireFox you will see that the stuff sent across the wire in Gaia Ajax CallBacks is in fact not HTML but rather small bursts of commands to specific objects on the client side. This is in fact the glue that makes it possible to not only reduce the amount of bandwidth to a fraction of most other Ajax frameworks but also makes it possible to create more complex controls without having to resort to concepts such as UpdatePanels or WebServices and so on. And all JavaScript files will be included on a demand basis meaning if you have a Gaia.Window initially invisible on a webpage no Gaia.Window JavaScript files will be included before you show the window!
No JavaScript required
When you’re using Gaia Ajax Web Widgets you will soon realize that you don’t have to write JavaScript at all. Unless you’re doing something really advanced like creating your own widget types in Gaia or you’re periodically manipulating the DOM through the Timer control or something you don’t have to write JavaScript yourself. Everything can be done in VB.NET or C# from within your event handlers. Many Ajax Library vendors comes with these same claims, though very few library vendors have done what we have done which is to create a complete ajax library from the bottom up. It is easy to be seduced by advanced TreeView controls and smashing WYSIWYG RAD Editor controls, but when shit hits the fan the most wanted controls are Button, Label, RadioButtons and so on. Not only can you find more advanced controls in Gaia like Window, AutoCompleter and DateTimePicker but you’ll also find the “glue” that makes everything seemlessly integrate like the Gaia.Button and the Gaia.Label and so on. And off course everything can be done from any event handler. In fact if you want to you could make a DropDownList visible, a RadioButtonGroup green and increase the Font-Size of a Label in a GetAutoCompleteItems event handler. All this without writing one line of JavaScript!
Gaia is OPEN SOURCE
Maybe the best part about Gaia is that it’s Open Source! You can choose from either the GPL version 2 or the Gaia Commercial License. Frost Innovation believes in Quid Pro Quo which basically means “something for something”.
Gaia might be free of charge
If you have some sort of “pro bono” website or want to create a website for an organization that’s into charity or something similar, then just say so and you’ll probably be entitled to get a GCL License for free! If you’re creating a website for an environmental organization, then please let us now and you’ll also get the full version for free! After all we didn’t pick the name “Gaia” for nothing!
We believe that if we do good things, good things will happen to us!
