After much demand, we’re now working on new releases of GUI Design Studio, starting with version 5.0, including colour swatches and element themes for customisation using CSS rules.

Version 4 customers who purchased within the last 12 months are eligible for a free upgrade to version 5. We’re contacting you in stages, most recent purchasers first, so bare with us while we reach you all.

Colour Swatches

Colour swatches give you enormous control over your design with the flexibility to try out different colour schemes at the flick of a switch. Create new swatches and duplicate, edit or delete existing ones.

The swatch colours are available from the colour picker popup for appropriate element properties:

Pastels – Warm

Pink Panther

Vintage Green

Themes

In the past, we’ve had to update the rendering code to provide different visual styles for each element. This was not only tedious and very time consuming, it meant that requests for specific or custom visual styles couldn’t realistically be accommodated.

So, with version 5.0, you can now use a new method to change the look and feel of elements using CSS rules and associated image asset files, wrapped up in themes.

Here’s a very simple example in action, shown with a couple of native styles and themes…

The built-in “Sketch” visual style:：

The built-in “Windows Vista” visual style:

The new “Windows Modern” theme:

Or, for something completely different, here’s the same dialog design with the “Demo” theme applied and the “Warm” swatch selected, including an eclectic set of custom controls:

Clearly not the best UI design mix, but an example of the sort of fun you can have with custom CSS styling.

Other Changes

There are over 20 other small changes and fixes to improve capabilities and behaviour, including new expression functions for advanced prototypes.

This is just the start for version 5. We have some major new design layout features in the works so watch this space for more news.

Download and Upgrade

Version 5.0 will not work with existing V4 license keys but we’re keeping the upgrade cost low.

You can download a 30-day trial of v5.0 here (either edition) and install it along side any existing version that you might be using.