Graphical user interface builder

NetBeans GUI builder

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. 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. Such tools are usually called the term RAD IDE.

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

C language based

• GTK / Glade Interface Designer
• Motif
• XForms (toolkit) fdesign
• Intrinsics

C# based

• UWP / Windows Presentation Foundation / WinForms
  • Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor, XAML based GUI layout
  • Microsoft Expression Blend
  • SharpDevelop
• Xamarin.Forms / .NET Core
  • Xamarin Studio

C++ based

• UWP / Windows Presentation Foundation / WinForms
  • Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor, XAML based GUI layout
  • Microsoft Blend
• Qt (toolkit)
  • Qt Creator
• FLTK
  • FLUID
• JUCE
• U++
• wxWidgets
  • wxFormBuilder

Objective-C / Swift based

• Cocoa (modern) and Carbon (deprecated).
  • Xcode
• GNUstep (formerly OpenStep)
  • Gorm

Java based

• Android Studio, XML-based GUI layout
• NetBeans GUI design tool

HTML/JavaScript based

• Adobe Dreamweaver — Obsolete as of 2022
• Apache Cordova / PhoneGap

Object Pascal based

• Delphi / VCL (Visual Component Library)
• Lazarus / LCL (Lazarus Component Library)

Tk framework based

• Tk (framework) for Tcl
  • ActiveState Komodo (No longer has a GUI builder)
  • TKproE (TCL/TK Programming Environment)

Visual Basic based

• UWP / Windows Presentation Foundation / WinForms
  • Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor, XAML based GUI layout
  • Microsoft Expression Blend

Other tools

• Adobe Animate
• App Inventor for Android
• AutoIt
• Axure RP
• Creately
• Embedded Wizard
• GEM
• Interface Builder
• LucidChart
• OpenWindows
• Resource construction set
• Stetic
• Scaleform
• Wavemaker

List of development environments

IDEs with GUI builders (RAD IDEs)

• 4D
• ActiveState Komodo (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

See also

• Rapid application development (RAD)
• Human interface guidelines (HIG)
• Human interface device
• User interface markup language
• User interface modeling
• Design-Oriented Programming
• Linux on the desktop