If you’ve been developing any web application over the last few years, it’s likely that you may have already heard of at least one, if not all of these JavaScript frameworks. But if not, you may want to look into these in particular to help make your web application UI development quicker and much easier.

#1: script.aculo.us

Need to add some nice looking animations to your user interface, but don’t want to resort to using Flash for animations? Script.aculo.us offers a wide range of very clean looking animations that you can apply to any image, form element, or HTML entity.

Site: script.aculo.us

#2: Prototype

Prototype’s best feature is its AJAX capabilities. Prototype makes building AJAX-style applications much, much easier. It also features: enhancements to JavaScript arrays, a JavaScript class builder, simple methods for manipulating HTML elements, and more.

Site: prototype

#3: Dojo Toolkit

Dojo has nearly everything you could want: draggable windows, form controls, a rich text editor, progress bars and more. Extremely simple, fairly lightweight, and reliable across all major browser versions. Dojo is simply a must for anyone looking for an end-all be-all JavaScript UI framework.

Site: Dojo

#4: jQuery

As with all the frameworks mentioned on this list, jQuery provides many JavaScript classes for building and handling AJAX events and parsing JSON, as well as many UI effects that can really improve the overall look and usability of your web application. jQuery is a tad bit smaller than some (like Dojo and yui), and also has a fairly straightforward interop story with prototype.

Site: jquery

#5: Yahoo’s yui

Yahoo has made their entire user interface library completely open to web developers for both commercial and non-commercial use. yui is by far the most complete JavaScript library available, with functions for everything from creating draggable pop-up windows to handling AJAX events and manipulating DOM elements. yui does tend to end up giving your applications a distinct “built by Yahoo” feel, though, so there is a bit of a trade-off.

Site: yui

Know of a JavaScript UI/AJAX library I should’ve included on this list? Let me know in the comments!

Filed under: Consumer Web, Enterprise Web, JavaScript