Graphical user interface builder
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2025) |
A graphical user interface builder (or GUI builder), also known as GUI designer or sometimes RAD IDE, 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.[1] Without a GUI builder, a GUI must be built by manually specifying each widget's parameters in the 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 software widgets with the outgoing and incoming events that trigger the functions providing the application logic.
Some graphical user interface builders automatically generate all the source code for a graphical control element. Others, like Interface Builder or Glade Interface Designer, generate serialized object instances that are then loaded by the application.
List of GUI builders
[edit | edit source]C language based
[edit | edit source]C# based
[edit | edit source]- UWP / Windows Presentation Foundation / WinForms
- Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor, XAML based GUI layout
- Microsoft Expression Blend
- SharpDevelop
- Xamarin.Forms / .NET Core
C++ based
[edit | edit source]- UWP / Windows Presentation Foundation / WinForms
- Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor, XAML based GUI layout
- Microsoft Blend
- Qt (toolkit)
- FLTK
- JUCE
- U++
- wxWidgets
Objective-C / Swift based
[edit | edit source]Java based
[edit | edit source]- Android Studio, XML-based GUI layout
- NetBeans GUI design tool
HTML/JavaScript based
[edit | edit source]Python based
[edit | edit source]Object Pascal based
[edit | edit source]- Delphi / VCL (Visual Component Library)
- Lazarus / LCL (Lazarus Component Library)
Tk framework based
[edit | edit source]- Tk (framework) for Tcl
- ActiveState Komodo (No longer[when?] has a GUI builder)
Visual Basic based
[edit | edit source]- UWP / Windows Presentation Foundation / WinForms
- Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor, XAML based GUI layout
- Microsoft Expression Blend
Other tools
[edit | edit source]- Adobe Animate
- App Inventor for Android
- AutoIt
- Creately
- Embedded Wizard
- GEM
- Interface Builder
- LucidChart
- OpenWindows
- Resource construction set
- Stetic
- Scaleform
- Wavemaker
List of development environments
[edit | edit source]IDEs with GUI builders (RAD IDEs)
[edit | edit source]- 4D
- ActiveState Komodo (No longer[when?] has a GUI builder)
- Android Studio
- Anjuta
- AutoIt3
- C++Builder
- Clarion
- Code::Blocks
- CodeLite
- dBase
- Delphi/RAD Studio
- Embedded Wizard
- Eclipse
- Gambas
- IntelliJ IDEA
- InForm
- JDeveloper
- KDevelop
- LabWindows/CVI
- LANSA
- Lazarus
- Liberty BASIC
- Microsoft Visual Studio
- MonoDevelop
- MSEide+MSEgui
- MyEclipse
- NetBeans
- OutSystems
- PascalABC.NET
- Projucer
- Purebasic
- Qt Creator
- SharpDevelop
- Softwell Maker
- U++
- VB6
- WinFBE
- Xcode
- Xojo
See also
[edit | edit source]- Model–view–controller
- Web template system
- Rapid application development (RAD)
- Human interface guidelines (HIG)
- Human interface device
- User interface markup language
- User interface modeling
- Linux on the desktop
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).