AJAX-based RIA does not reload the whole page every time; instead it just loads the required data in the respective content area. This is the main differentiating aspect in RIA. It holds the user context all the time, thus the user experience is very much appreciated by the users. RIA applications do not open multiple browser windows, as it is done in the traditional web application using window.open(). Instead, it uses the modal dialog and avoids the floating browser windows. RIA applications do not wipe out the whole page and reload the new page, as it is done in traditional web applications; instead, they retain the user context, send and receive only the necessary data, and update only the changed or impacted portion of the screen. qooxdoo is an RIA framework based on AJAX.

RIA provides rich features developed through the off-the-shelf widgets provided by RIA frameworks such as qooxdoo. Because of this, RIA provides rich user experience. You have seen the toolbar, split-pane, modal dialog, and so on in the feed reader application. There are many more widgets provided by qooxdoo for various purposes that you'll come to know about in the coming chapters.

qooxdoo provides a wide range of widgets in the GUI library, which helps you to develop your application pretty quickly with all the rich features. For example, qooxdoo provides the Tree widget that does not come with the plain HTML, it supports column sorting on the table and the remote data model for the table. There are many more widgets with very nice features that are readily available for you. You don't have to spend time to develop these things on your own in HTML and struggle between multiple browser implementations. Instead, just focus on your application's functionalities.