Best way to "retire" outline applet on web?

We have an “older” app where I’d like to enhance the web UI. It is now using the outline and displays that in the web using the applet. Same for buttons.

I know I can do Ext.nd on the app but that will also give me some problem with UI. Takes a long time to get the old look&feel back.

I have been looking at Prototype to use ajax and script my way and perhaps add-on script.aculo.us as a nicer UI.

But the drawback is that I cannot use the “getviewentries” since that is blocked by policyreasons.

Any ideas on a good way to “replace and retire” the applet with a minimum of effort? Any nice frameworks to use?

No, XPages is still not an option since we will run these on R6.5x for a while longer.