Suggestion needed for RIA technologies

Guys,

I need some suggestion from you people as to which client side technology is kind of one solution that has all capabilities to build from a simple web application to a portal. I mean I would like to learn and master a technology that has all bundled in itself (like a javascript framework, AJAX, solid integration with Server Side java).

Suggestions needed! I"m currently exploring on Prototype and is this something in lines of what I wanted here?

While Prototype is useful, you'll probably want something in addition to it (or instead of it) that can also help with GUI manipulation, like jQuery or script.aculo.us.

The http://faq.javaranch.com/java/JavascriptLinks page links to plenty more such libraries as well as other useful material.

Thanks Ulf. Can you please let me know exploring which one of them would help me in coupling with web development using Struts 2?

The frameworks here in question are,

jQuery

Prototype

Scriptaculous

I don't think there's a difference between them with regards to server-side technologies. You might want to use something on the server that can emit JSON, though. (I'm not sure how good Struts is at that.)

What do you mean by emitting JSON?

JSON (http://www.json.org/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON) is a data exchange format that is rapidly becoming popular for AJAX communication (so, it would actually be AJAJ). It's easier to handle within JavaScript than XML, because it can be passed directly into the eval function and so generate JavaScript objects.

I started exploring on JQuery and it looks interesting. I would then very soon become very well aquainted with the GUI stuff!