yeah it looks great. I think its a great idea to use more of the web for the desktop - there is so much work going on in browsers/javascript it makes sense to use it for offline work as well.
well, the point of pyjamas-desktop is that you can, if you choose, run an "online" app that happens to be a stand-alone dedicated app that runs on the user's desktop.
let me rephrase that :)
pyjamas-desktop can be used for "online" apps just as much as it can for "offline" ones. in fact, you _still_ need a web server, even if it's running on localhost, because applications that conform to the pyjamas API will _still_ have to use XMLHttpRequest to interact with the rest of the world.
that interaction is done behind a neat abstraction module, HTTPRequest.py, but it's still necessary.
so - offline / online, there's no difference.
what you _do_ get with pyjamas-desktop is a speed-increase in your application, thanks to no longer being forced to utilise javascript. in cases where your application morphs into something that requires 10,000 on-screen widgets (not inconceivable for complex business apps) the speed-up of direct access to the blindingly-quick WebKit (http://webkit.org) underlying library is absolutely essential.
not even GWT can offer this, because google haven't bothered to port GWT to the desktop: they believe that the "hosting" mode - running from the Eclipse Development Environment - a whopping 150mb download on its own - is perfectly sufficient.
if you want to run "hosted" mode, where the javascript and java is executed by eclipse, then yes, GWT requires eclipse.
GWT itself does not have a "desktop" mode, it does not have a "desktop" version, and so GWT apps cannot themselves be run as a "desktop" app unless you use the GWT Eclipse-basesd "hosted" mode - or you run the GWT-compiled javascript under Adobe AIR, Mozilla's Gecko / Spidermonkey, etc. etc. etc.
Right yes I don't think GWT is really interested in desktop - unless like you say you compile it, but then its quite different.
I have run it hosted just fine with no eclipse components (only for dev of course) - just the JVM and about 10 meg of jars (or 9 meg dev jar) - I am not sure where you get the 150 meg from though?