In component-based programming (Visual Basic, .NETWinForms, Gambas, Delphi, Lazarus etc.), a form is a representation of a GUI window. A form contains components and controls typically including "OK" and "Cancel" buttons, these objects provide a high-level abstraction of standard or custom widgets which are typically much easier to manipulate than the GUI's underlying API.
At design time, visual controls (buttons, text boxes, and the like) and non-visual components (timers, database connections, layout aids and so on) are placed on the form. These controls and components are positioned and sized interactively, and their properties and event handlers are set with a special editor typically laid out as a grid.
At runtime, automatically generated code creates instances of these controls and components, and sets their properties.
Historically, forms were often implemented as screens on a block-oriented terminal connected to a mainframe computer. HTML forms are conceptually very similar.
The graphical user interface is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, instead of text-based UIs, typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard.
VBScript is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It allows Microsoft Windows system administrators to generate powerful tools for managing computers with error handling, subroutines, and other advanced programming constructs. It can give the user complete control over many aspects of their computing environment.
In computing, a window is a graphical control element. It consists of a visual area containing some of the graphical user interface of the program it belongs to and is framed by a window decoration. It usually has a rectangular shape that can overlap with the area of other windows. It displays the output of and may allow input to one or more processes.
Swing is a GUI widget toolkit for Java. It is part of Oracle's Java Foundation Classes (JFC) – an API for providing a graphical user interface (GUI) for Java programs.
Delphi is a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, mobile, web, and console software, currently developed and maintained by Embarcadero Technologies.
A graphical widget 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 direct manipulation to read or edit information about an application. User interface libraries such as Windows Presentation Foundation, GTK, and Cocoa, contain a collection of controls and the logic to render these.
Windows Forms (WinForms) is a free and open-source graphical (GUI) class library included as a part of Microsoft .NET, .NET Framework or Mono Framework, providing a platform to write client applications for desktop, laptop, and tablet PCs. While it is seen as a replacement for the earlier and more complex C++ based Microsoft Foundation Class Library, it does not offer a comparable paradigm and only acts as a platform for the user interface tier in a multi-tier solution.
Borland Kylix is a compiler and integrated development environment (IDE) formerly sold by Borland, but later discontinued. It is a Linux software development environment based on Borland Delphi and Borland C++ Builder, which runs under Microsoft Windows. Continuing Delphi's classical Greek theme, Kylix is the name for an ancient Greek drinking cup. The closest supported equivalent to Kylix is the free Lazarus IDE package, designed to be code-compatible with Delphi. As of 2010 the project has been resurrected in the form of Delphi cross compiler for Mac and Linux, as shown in the Embarcadero's Delphi and C++ Builder roadmap. As of September 2011 with Kylix discontinued the framework for cross-platform development by Embarcadero is FireMonkey.
Windows Installer is a software component and application programming interface (API) of Microsoft Windows used for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software. The installation information, and optionally the files themselves, are packaged in installation packages, loosely relational databases structured as COM Structured Storages and commonly known as "MSI files", from their default filename extensions. The packages with the file extensions mst contain Windows Installer "Transformation Scripts", those with the msm extensions contain "Merge Modules" and the file extension pcp is used for "Patch Creation Properties". Windows Installer contains significant changes from its predecessor, Setup API. New features include a GUI framework and automatic generation of the uninstallation sequence. Windows Installer is positioned as an alternative to stand-alone executable installer frameworks such as older versions of InstallShield and NSIS.
A graphical user interface 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 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.
WindowBlinds is a computer program that allows users to skin the Windows graphical user interface. It has been developed by Stardock since 1998, and is the most popular component of their flagship software suite, Object Desktop. It is also available separately, and as an ActiveX/COM component called DirectSkin. Introduced in its sixth version, it supports alpha blending effects similar to the compositing of Windows Vista, but on Windows XP.
The original Visual Basic is a third-generation event-driven programming language from Microsoft known for its Component Object Model (COM) programming model first released in 1991 and declared legacy during 2008. Microsoft intended Visual Basic to be relatively easy to learn and use. Visual Basic was derived from BASIC and enables the rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using Data Access Objects, Remote Data Objects, or ActiveX Data Objects, and creation of ActiveX controls and objects.
MonoDevelop was an open-source integrated development environment for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Its primary focus is development of projects that use Mono and .NET Framework. MonoDevelop integrates features similar to those of NetBeans and Microsoft Visual Studio, such as automatic code completion, source control, a graphical user interface (GUI) and Web designer. MonoDevelop integrates a Gtk# GUI designer called Stetic. It supports Boo, C, C++, C#, CIL, D, F#, Java, Oxygene, Vala, JavaScript, TypeScript and Visual Basic.NET.
TestComplete is a functional automated testing platform developed by SmartBear Software. TestComplete gives testers the ability to create automated tests for Microsoft Windows, Web, Android, and iOS applications. Tests can be recorded, scripted or manually created with keyword driven operations and used for automated playback and error logging.
Xamarin is a Microsoft-owned San Francisco-based software company founded in May 2011 by the engineers that created Mono, Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS, which are cross-platform implementations of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and Common Language Specifications.
Mono is a free and open-source .NET Framework-compatible software framework. Originally by Ximian, it was later acquired by Novell, and is now being led by Xamarin, a subsidiary of Microsoft and the .NET Foundation. Mono can be run on many software systems.
FireMonkey is a cross-platform GUI framework developed by Embarcadero Technologies for use in Delphi or C++Builder, using C++ or Object Pascal to build cross platform applications for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. A 3rd party library, FMX Linux, enables the building of FireMonkey applications on Linux.
ASP.NET Web Forms is a web application framework and one of several programming models supported by the Microsoft ASP.NET technology. Web Forms applications can be written in any programming language which supports the Common Language Runtime, such as C# or Visual Basic. The main building blocks of Web Forms pages are server controls, which are reusable components responsible for rendering HTML markup and responding to events. A technique called view state is used to persist the state of server controls between normally stateless HTTP requests.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
