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
- C++
- C++Builder
- Qt Creator
- Cocoa/OpenStep
- Interface Builder
- Crank Storyboard Suite
- dBase
- Embedded Wizard
- FLTK
- FLUID
- GNUstep
- Gorm
- GEM
- Resource construction set
- GTK+
- Glade Interface Designer
- Stetic
- GTK#
- MonoDevelop
- Intrinsics
- Motif
- LucidChart
- nuBuilder
- Object Pascal
- Delphi
- Lazarus
- OpenWindows
- Qt
- Qt Creator
- Scaleform
- Tk (framework)
- ActiveState Komodo (No longer has a GUI builder)
- Ultimate++
- VCL (Visual Component Library)
- Delphi
- C++Builder
- Wavemaker
- Windows Presentation Foundation
- Microsoft Expression Blend
- wxWidgets
- wxGlade
- wxFormBuilder
- wxCrafter (plugin for CodeLite)
- XForms (toolkit)
IDE Plugins
- NetBeans GUI design tool
List of development environments
IDEs with GUI builders
- 4D
- ActiveState Komodo (No longer has a GUI builder)
- Android Studio
- AutoIt3
- C++Builder
- Clarion
- Code::Blocks
- CodeLite
- dBase
- Delphi
- Eclipse
- Gambas
- JDeveloper
- KDevelop
- Kushal
- LabWindows/CVI
- LANSA
- Lazarus
- Liberty BASIC
- Microsoft Visual Studio
- MonoDevelop
- MSEide+MSEgui
- MyEclipse
- OutSystems
- PascalABC.NET
- Philasmicos Entwickler Studio
- Purebasic
- Qt Creator
- Roshan
- SharpDevelop
- Softwell Maker
- Xcode
- Xojo
See also
- Human interface guidelines
- Human interface device
- User interface markup language
- User Interface Modeling
- Design-Oriented Programming
- Linux on the desktop
