jQuery, Prototype/Script.aculo.us, YUI/Ext, Dojo, MochiKit, Zimbra, etc....help :]

[hedgehog]

I've always been a do-it-yourselfer when it comes to referencing DOM,
doing lil animations and Ajax queries, etc, but I thought I'd give
someone else's toolkit a spin.

Aside from sorting out that jQuery's small and Script.aculo.us' home
page animation doesn't always start in FF 2.0.0.3, I've no clue as to
which toolkits are better suited to which tasks.

Here's a general idea of the sorts of projects I'll be coding over the
next year:

* combo eCommerce store & site CMS (don't get me started on
OSCommerce...)
* a bunch of band websites (we have a record label division)
* a web-based RPG (a freetime / vanity project)
* a portable image gallery
* some sort of music streaming gallery sort of thing

I'm not hoping people will do all my R&D for me, but if anyone has
opinions (it is usenet...) or something leaps to mind, I'd love to
hear it.

Thanks!

[hedgehog]

A few additional observations that may or may not be true?

* Dojo so far seems like the best bet for my RPG project, with its
client-side storage options. I remember another toolkit having an
"offline" solution that might be similarly advantageous, but I can't
recall the name. It's a graphical, tile-based RPG, so caching map data
clientside is of principle focus in a toolkit there.

* YUI/ext seems like a good candidate for CMS building, with speed,
JSON support, and EXT's emphasis on data / dialog building. So far YUI/
EXT doesn't seem to include built in template management (drag and
drop layout arrangement), but it looks like this is slated to be in
the 1.0 release next week?

* jQuery for the smaller image gallery, due to size and simplicity.

* prototype? I seem to find a lot of love for prototype, but not much
else.