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Welcome to ExpressUI

ExpressUI is a Java framework for rapidly building business applications. Unlike general-purpose frameworks, ExpressUI makes stark design tradeoffs to achieve extreme simplicity and productivity. For typical CRUD applications, ExpressUI can be far more productive than leading frameworks such as Rails, Grails, Play or Spring Roo.

While some of these frameworks can generate CRUD applications, they often require significant coding effort to meet real-world requirements. ExpressUI goes a step further by providing dynamic, smarter, more data-aware UI components at a higher level of abstraction.

ExpressUI may not be as flexible in supporting UI customization. Nor is it not appropriate for high-volume websites. However, for many typical business applications used within enterprise organizations or online communities, ExpressUI is responsive and flexible enough to meet most requirements at dramatically lower costs.

Key Design Features

  • One Language – code your application in one language: Java. No HTML, no JavaScript, no XML, no SQL. Easy to read, easy to write and easy to debug.
  • One Layer – code everything on the server. No need to manage client state and synchronize with the server.
  • Gentle Learning Curve – leverage your existing knowledge of Java, Spring and JPA/Hibernate. ExpressUI APIs are simple, intuitive and fully documented.
  • Code Reuse – unlike template-based UI technologies, easily modularize and reuse code with tried-and-true OO techniques of composition and inheritance.
  • Extensible – extend existing UI components or create your own using Vaadin, another key part of the ExpressUI architecture.
  • Data-Aware UI – leverage tables and forms that intelligently handle layout, entity relationships, data types, formatting and validation.
  • Security Configuration – manage users, roles and permissions at field level, all configurable in the UI without code changes.
  • Continuous Integration – evolve and test changes to your domain model without friction, by regenerating the database from scratch at any time.
  • Easy Internationalization – painless support for internationalization and localization, as shown by the multilingual live demo.

To learn ExpressUI in minutes, check out the live demo, now annotated with code popups that show just how simple writing applications can be!