Preparing to use the EGL Dojo widgets

You can develop with the EGL Dojo widgets by using either a local or remote version of the Dojo Toolkit. In either case, you must specify the Dojo Toolkit provider on your EGL build path.

Local
The Dojo Toolkit must be imported into your workspace to provide the necessary code for the EGL Dojo widgets to run locally.
Remote
To use the Dojo Toolkit remotely, you must connect to the toolkit though a provider such as Google or AOL. The provider hosts the Dojo Toolkit for use by Dojo developers.

You might use a local version of the toolkit instead of a remote version for many reasons. The next table reviews the advantages and disadvantages of local and remote access.

Table 1. Considerations for accessing the Dojo Toolkit locally or remotely
Local Remote
Flexibility
  • You do not need the Internet to access to the toolkit.
  • You control where the toolkit is accessed from.
  • You can develop new Dojo widgets and debug the JavaScript™.
 Performance
  • Performance is better because the browser caches more resources.
  • The integrated development environment (IDE) is faster because there are fewer things in your workspace.
  • You deploy only your own application and do not have to deploy the Dojo Toolkit files.
Slower at deployment and run time
  • When you deploy your application, the Dojo Toolkit files are copied to your web server.
  • You must access the Dojo files from your server at run time, potentially using extra bandwidth.
  • The startup time for your application might be slower because of aspects of browser behavior, including caching.
 Dependency on third parties
  • You must be connected to the Internet. If you do not have a fast speed connection, the first run might be slow.
  • Hosted servers usually implement usage tracking, which you might want to avoid.
  • You must rely on a third party to maintain the integrity of the Dojo Toolkit libraries.

One scenario is to develop with a remote version of the toolkit and to deploy with a local version. In this way, you have the fastest development experience and can control the version of the Dojo toolkit that is hosted on the application server to which you deploy your application.