Archive for the ‘GUI Design Studio’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

GUI Design Studio 4.0 Preview – Part 2:
Custom Elements and Templates

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Version 4.0 PreviewGUI Design Studio version 4.0 includes new “Custom Elements” and “Templates”. These complement Components and Libraries already in GUI Design Studio.

They’re simple but they can make a big difference to your productivity by cutting out a huge amount of repetitive work, keeping consistency with house styles and helping you to create designs faster.

Custom Elements

Any folder within the Project tree can be assigned to be a Custom Element Folder. The folder icon then changes to indicate its new status. This is also applied to all of its sub-folders.

Custom Elements Folder

Now, you can create Custom Element designs within the folder and any existing GUI design that you want to be used as a Custom Element can be dragged into it.
(more…)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in GUI Design Studio, Releases | 1 Comment »

Styling Calendar Controls
- Are 33 colour options enough or too many?

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Version 3.6 of GUI Design Studio included a new element for creating Calendar controls.

When we started designing this feature, we looked around for examples of different calendars in desktop and web applications. We found a wide range of different designs; some with one month, some with 3 or 4, some highlighting “today”, others highlighting a particular day or a range of days. Of course, each application had quite a different visual design to its calendars as well.

In the past, we’ve tried to simplify elements and minimize the number of settings and options they have but, with this new element, we felt we had to provide for the increasing demand on design flexibility.

The problem, as all of you designers of great user interfaces will know, is that with flexibility comes complexity. We didn’t want to give you a tool which is hard to learn or slow to use because it has so many options and special cases, but we did want to give you a tool which will let you create the calendar design you need, quickly and simply.
(more…)

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Articles, Example Designs, GUI Design Studio, Usabilty, User Interface Design | 1 Comment »

GUI Design Studio 3.6 Released With New Calendar Elements

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

New Version 3.6GUI Design Studio version 3.6 is now available for immediate download. This is most likely the last 3.x maintenance release before we launch version 4.0 next month. It contains some fixes and changes based on customer requests and is a free upgrade for all registered users.

For customers using any prior version of GUI Design Studio, simply install the new version and your existing licenses will continue to work.

Calendar Elements

Calendar ElementsWith so many requests from users, we’ve finally added Calendar elements to the mix. This was essentially the last missing native Windows control and a common feature in a vast number of desktop and Web applications.

So why has it taken so long to appear? Well, that’s a very good question. Right from the start, with the version 1.0 release 5 years ago, we realized that calendar controls were important. But rather than create complex elements for every conceivable situation, the idea then was to provide basic building blocks from which other elements could be assembled.

The very first design samples library contained various calendar controls with different display options. We thought that this would be enough for simple mock-up purposes. Well, clearly, we were wrong! Creating calendar controls from scratch using text boxes and other elements is both tedious and time consuming, especially if you don’t want a design that’s stuck in 2005!
(more…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in GUI Design Studio, Prototyping, Releases, User Interface Design | 1 Comment »

GUI Design Studio 4.0 Preview – Part 1: New Interaction

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Version 4.0 PreviewLater this week we’ll be releasing what’s probably the last of the 3.x versions of GUI Design Studio before version 4.0 is released in about 5 weeks time.

Version 4 of GUI Design Studio represents a big move forward. The big areas of new features are Interactivity on Controls, Templates and Custom Elements.

In this post you’ll get an overview of the new Interaction features with suggestions on how you might use them (screenshots are subject to change before final release). You’ll also see how to get free access to beta versions of the software before the final release next month.

New Interaction Features

When you show a user interface design to a prospective user they are going to want to understand what the design will be like to use. They will need to try out the types of operations that will be important to them, in their work, trying to achieve their objectives.
(more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in GUI Design Studio, Releases | Comments Off

GUI Design Studio Tip#2: Make Use of Keyboard Shortcuts

Friday, November 27th, 2009

Keyboard Shortcuts Help TopicGUI Design work involves a lot of mouse activity. Be more productive and reduce the strain by using keyboard alternatives where possible.

 

You can find most of the shortcut keys in the Help file by using the “Help | Keyboard Shortcuts” menu command.

 

Here’s a few more (some changed in version 3.5) that may not be listed in the help topic:
(more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in GUI Design Studio, Tips and Tricks | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »