Graphical user interface builder
Software development tool
A graphical user interface builder (or GUI builder), also known as GUI designer or sometimes rapid application development (RAD) integrated development environment (IDE), is a software development tool that simplifies creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) by allowing a 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 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.
01List of GUI builders
C language based
C# based
- UWP, Windows Presentation Foundation, WinForms
- Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor, XAML based GUI layout
- Microsoft Expression Blend
- SharpDevelop
- Xamarin.Forms, .NET
- Xamarin Studio
C++ based
- UWP, Windows Presentation Foundation, WinForms
- Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor, XAML based GUI layout
- Microsoft Blend
- Qt (software)
- FLTK
- JUCE
- U++
- wxWidgets
Objective-C, Swift based
Java based
- Android Studio, XML-based GUI layout
- NetBeans GUI design tool
HTML-JavaScript based
Python based
Object Pascal based
- Delphi, Visual Component Library (VCL)
- Lazarus, Lazarus Component Library (LCL)
Tk framework based
- Tk (software) for Tcl
- Komodo Edit (No longer has a GUI builder)
Visual Basic based
- UWP, Windows Presentation Foundation, WinForms
- Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor, XAML based GUI layout
- Microsoft Expression Blend
Other tools
02List of development environments
IDEs with GUI builders (RAD IDEs)
- 4D
- Komodo Edit (No longer 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
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Graphical user interface builder”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Gui-builder.png by Moriline, CC BY-SA 3.0
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