Graphical user interface builder

A graphical user interface builder (or GUI builder), also known as GUI designer, is a software development tool that simplifies the creation of GUIs by allowing the designer to arrange graphical control elements (often called widgets) using a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor. Without a GUI builder, a GUI must be built by manually specifying each widget's parameters in source-code, with no visual feedback until the program is run.

User interfaces are commonly programmed using an event-driven architecture, so GUI builders also simplify creating event-driven code. This supporting code connects widgets with the outgoing and incoming events that trigger the functions providing the application logic.

Some graphical user interface builders, such as e.g. Glade Interface Designer, automatically generate all the source code for a graphical control element. Others, like Interface Builder, generate serialized object instances that are then loaded by the application.

List of GUI builders

Programs

App Inventor for Android
AutoIt
Axure RP
Cocoa/OpenStep
- Interface Builder
dBase
Ebase Xi
Embedded Wizard
FLTK
- FLUID
GNUstep
- Gorm
GEM
- Resource construction set
GTK+
- Glade Interface Designer
- Stetic
Intrinsics
- Motif
LucidChart
Object Pascal
- Lazarus
OpenWindows
Pencil
Qt
- Qt Creator
Scaleform
Tk (framework)
- ActiveState Komodo (No longer has a GUI builder)
Ultimate++
Wavemaker
Windows Presentation Foundation
- Microsoft Expression Blend
nuBuilder
wxWidgets
- wxGlade
- wxFormBuilder
- wxCrafter (see CodeLite)
XForms (toolkit)
Crank Storyboard Suite

IDE Plugins

NetBeans GUI design tool

List of development environments

IDEs with GUI builders

ActiveState Komodo (No longer has a GUI builder)
Adobe Flash Builder
Anjuta
AutoIt3
BBj
Clarion
Code::Blocks
CodeLite
dBase
DGLux5
Delphi
Ebase Xi
Eclipse
Gambas
JDeveloper
Just BASIC/Liberty BASIC
KDevelop
Lazarus
LabWindows/CVI
Liberty BASIC Workshop
Microsoft Visual Studio
MonoDevelop
MSEide+MSEgui
MyEclipse
NetBeans
OutSystems
Philasmicos Entwickler Studio
Purebasic
Qt Creator
SharpDevelop
Softwell Maker
WinDev
wxDev-C++
Xcode
Xojo

Widgets List of …

Command input	Adjustment handle Button Context menu Drop-down list Hamburger button Menu Pie menu

Data input-output	Checkbox Color picker Combo box Cycle button Date Picker Grid view List box List builder Radio button Scrollbar Search box Slider Spinner Text box

Informational	Balloon help Head-up display in computing Head-up display in video games Icon Infobar Label Loading screen Progress indicator Progress bar Splash screen Throbber Sidebar Status bar Toast Tooltip

Containers	Accordion Disclosure widget Frame/Fieldset Menu bar Menu button Panel Popover Ribbon Tab Toolbar Window

Navigational	Address bar Breadcrumb Hyperlink Navigation bar Pager Tree view

Special windows	About box Alert dialog box Dialog box File dialog Inspector window Modal window Palette window

Related concepts	File viewer List of graphical user interface elements Layout manager Look and feel Mouseover Widget toolkit WIMP

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, October 22, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.