In 2010 the leaders of the Hungarian Electronic Library project in the National Széchényi Library expressed a need for an advanced, customizable interface with the functionality of the popular book-oriented social networks and content sharing sites (e.g. tagging, rating, compiling subcollections). First - as a pilot - a Picture Album has been developed based on the collection of the DKA (Digital Archive of Pictures). This application allows the users to log in with their Facebook or Google ID, and to create and share image compilations: dka.oszk.hu/html/kepalbum.php

When planning the system we had to make decisions about the software tools, too. Our previous services are build on PHP and MySQL. We decided to continue to use the MySQL as a database management tool, but for the user interface we wanted something better looking, more flexible instead of the ordinary PHP+HTML combination. Our system administrator suggested the QxTransformer tool, which is built upon a JavaScript-based open source web application framework, named qooxdoo.

QxTransformer is a platform independent, Python-based toolkit for rapid application development with the qooxdoo framework. It uses XML syntax. Some of its advantages are: clarity of code, self-validation, databinding, portability, extensibility...

The qooxdoo is a powerful and flexible framework, which lets us build fancy and interactive web-based GUIs. Compared to traditional HTML interfaces, qooxdoo provides not only a much better look and widgets known from desktop operating system, but also frees us from the traditional and cumbersome "input, submit & page refresh" model.

Despite the many advantages the planned application could not been accomplished with the QxTransformer only, it became necessary to use the JavaScript-based qooxdoo as well. These tools are built on each other, so it was possible to mix them.

We present the completed application and our qooxdoo experiences and adventures.