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 element A graphical widget (also graphical control element or control) in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through direc ...

s (often called widgets) using a

drag-and-drop In computer graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture in which the user selects a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, it can be used ...

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...

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. Such tools usually called the term

RAD RAD or Rad may refer to: People * Robert Anthony Rad Dougall (born 1951), South African former racing driver * Rad Hourani, Canadian fashion designer and artist * Nickname of Leonardus Rad Kortenhorst (1886–1963), Dutch politician * Radley ...

IDE. User interfaces are commonly programmed using an

event-driven architecture Event-driven architecture (EDA) is a software architecture paradigm promoting the production, detection, consumption of, and reaction to events. Overview An ''event'' can be defined as "a significant change in state". For example, when a consume ...

, so GUI builders also simplify creating event-driven code. This supporting code connects

software widget A software widget is a relatively simple and easy-to-use software application or component made for one or more different software platforms. A desk accessory or applet is an example of a simple, stand-alone user interface, in contrast with ...

s 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 In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...

for a

. Others, like

Interface Builder Interface Builder is a software development application for Apple's macOS operating system. It is part of Xcode (formerly Project Builder), the Apple Developer developer's toolset. Interface Builder allows Cocoa and Carbon developers to cre ...

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 * XForms (toolkit) fdesign * Intrinsics *

Motif Motif may refer to: General concepts * Motif (chess composition), an element of a move in the consideration of its purpose * Motif (folkloristics), a recurring element that creates recognizable patterns in folklore and folk-art traditions * Moti ...

C# Based

* UWP /

Windows Presentation Foundation Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a free and open-source graphical subsystem (similar to WinForms) originally developed by Microsoft for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF, previously known as "Avalon", was init ...

/ WinForms ** Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor,

XAML Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML ) is a declarative XML-based language that Microsoft developed for initializing structured values and objects. It is available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. XAML is used extensively ...

based GUI layout ** Microsoft Expression Blend ** SharpDevelop * Xamarin.Forms /

.NET Core The domain name net is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from the word ''network'', indicating it was originally intended for organizations involved in networking technologies ...

** Xamarin Studio

C++ Based

* UWP /

/ WinForms ** Microsoft Visual Studio XAML Editor,

based GUI layout ** Microsoft Blend *

Qt (toolkit) Qt (pronounced "cute") is cross-platform software for creating graphical user interfaces as well as cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as Linux, Windows, macOS, Android or embedded systems ...

Qt Creator Qt Creator is a cross-platform C++, JavaScript and QML integrated development environment (IDE) which simplifies GUI application development. It is part of the SDK for the Qt GUI application development framework and uses the Qt API, which ...

* FLTK **

FLUID In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that continuously deforms (''flows'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are substances which cannot resist any shea ...

wxWidgets wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows) is a widget toolkit and tools library for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with min ...

** wxGlade **

wxFormBuilder wxFormBuilder is an open source GUI designer application for wxWidgets toolkit, which allows creating cross-platform applications. A streamlined, easy to use interface enables faster development and easier maintenance of software. It is written ...

** wxCrafter (plugin for

CodeLite CodeLite is a free and open-source IDE for the C, C++, PHP, and JavaScript ( Node.js) programming languages. History In August 2006, Eran Ifrah started an autocomplete project named CodeLite. The idea was to create a code completion library ...

) * Projucer * Ultimate++

Objective-C / Swift Based

Cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

(modern) and

Carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon makes ...

(deprecated). **

Xcode Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It was initially released in late 2003; the latest stable release is version 14.2, released on December 13, ...

GNUstep GNUstep is a free software implementation of the Cocoa (formerly OpenStep) Objective-C frameworks, widget toolkit, and application development tools for Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the GNU Project. GNUst ...

(formerly

OpenStep OpenStep is a defunct object-oriented application programming interface (API) specification for a legacy object-oriented operating system, with the basic goal of offering a NeXTSTEP-like environment on non-NeXTSTEP operating systems. OpenStep wa ...

) ** Gorm

Java-Based

Android Studio Android Studio is the official integrated development environment (IDE) for Google's Android operating system, built on JetBrains' IntelliJ IDEA software and designed specifically for Android development. It is available for download on Windows ...

, XML based GUI layout * NetBeans GUI design tool *SceneBuilder

HTML/Javascript Based

DreamWeaver Adobe Dreamweaver is a proprietary web development tool from Adobe Inc. It was created by Macromedia in 1997 and developed by them until Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005. Adobe Dreamweaver is available for the macOS and Wind ...

from Adobe (Web Application User Interface Builders) — Obsolete as of 2022 *

Apache Cordova Apache Cordova (formerly PhoneGap) is a mobile application development framework created by Nitobi. Adobe Systems purchased Nitobi in 2011, rebranded it as PhoneGap, and later released an open-source version of the software called Apache Cordova ...

/ PhoneGap

Object Pascal Based

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracl ...

/ VCL (

Visual Component Library The Visual Component Library (VCL) is a visual component-based object-oriented framework for developing the user interface of Microsoft Windows applications. It is written in Object Pascal. History The VCL was developed by Borland for u ...

) * Lazarus / LCL ( Lazarus Component Library)

Flutter Framework Based

Flutter (software) Flutter is an open-source software, open-source User interface, UI software development kit created by Google. It is used to develop Cross-platform software, cross-platform applications for Android (operating system), Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, ...

** FlutterFlow, ** FlutterStudio, **

Nowa App builder Nowa (german: Neuen) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Bolesławiec, within Bolesławiec County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. Prior to 1945 it was in Germany. References Nowa Nowa (german: N ...

Tk Framework Based

Tk (framework) Tk is a free and open-source, cross-platform widget toolkit that provides a library of basic elements of GUI widgets for build