Posts Tagged ‘GUI Design Studio’

« Older Entries

GUI Design Studio 4.1 Released

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

New Version 4.1GUI Design Studio version 4.1 is now available for immediate download. This is a maintenance release with some fixes and changes based on customer requests. It’s a free upgrade for all registered v4 users. Users of v3 and earlier versions can try this version for 30 days or purchase an upgrade.

For customers using version 4.0 of GUI Design Studio, simply install the new version and your existing licenses will continue to work. Be sure to install the correct Professional or Express edition though!

New Element Grouping in v4.1

This has been a long-standing request from users so we’re pleased to introduce element grouping into version 4.1. This will become an essential feature for creating more complex custom elements.

Grouped elements form a unit so that selecting and moving one element within the group will move them all together. Elements within a group can still be individually selected to resize them and change their properties and grouping does not affect parent/child relationships.

First select all of the elements you want to group together, then use the new “Group Elements” command on the right-click context menu (Ctrl+G hotkey):
Element Grouping
You can also add elements into an existing group using this command. The “Ungroup Elements” command (Ctrl+Shift+G) will remove all selected elements from their respective groups.
(more…)

Tags: ,
Posted in GUI Design Studio, Releases | No Comments »

GUI Design Studio 4.0 Released With New Interaction and Templates

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

New Version 4.0GUI Design Studio version 4.0 is now available and includes some fantastic new features in two editions, both with a 30-day trial.

The new features are grouped around interactivity and element and design sharing. They enable you to build more realistic and interactive prototypes and to share or reuse individual elements or whole design templates with ease.

New editions

GUI Design Studio is now available in two different editions.

GUI Design Studio Express provides the prototyping functionality that was in v3, but focussed on individuals without the need to share projects and generate specification documentation.

GUI Design Studio Professional builds on v3, adding new interactivity and design sharing features, and is better suited to those working on larger projects, in teams, or on multiple designs.

All projects created in one edition will run in the other, or in the free viewer, except that the enhanced interactivity features in the Professional edition (see below) are not available in the Express edition. You can compare the two editions here.

Prototypes get more interactive (Pro edition only)

As your user interface design develops, everyone involved starts to focus on the details of interactivity. What process does the user need to go through to achieve certain tasks, how many button presses, how much navigation, is it clear and obvious, can they make simple mistakes?

All of these questions, and more, need to be considered in developing and refining a good UI and they cannot be addressed easily in a simple mock-up.

GUI Design Studio v4 introduces a range of new features (more…)

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in GUI Design Studio, Prototyping, Releases, User Interface Design | 2 Comments »

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 | No Comments »

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 »

« Older Entries