rapid application developement tools for very basic GUI apps

Question

I know there are many RAD platforms out there. Infact there are so many that I'm having a hard time finding out which one fits me best. What I want is a RAD tool that would allow me to define a database data model (make DB tables) and then create (view and edit) forms for the various tables. Data input, updating and various queries should be easy and GUI should generate automatically. I'd like to add some additional functionality by coding (such as various complex calculations on the data).

I'm a programmer so I'm willing to learn to use a more complete, full-blown RAD solution if you can point me to it (NetBeans and RubyOnRails being the two such frameworks that I'd would probably be high on the list). I'm currently doing Windows Forms logistics apps in .NET. I've actually developed a very crude and basic version of what I need, but I just know that there are solutions out there that are much better and I'd benefit by knowing how to use them.

So in short, the basic requirements:

* database based data storage (SQLite if possible)
* very automated GUI creation
* desktop based (as in: not a web app)
* extendable by coding
* used for creating simple data entry, view & query apps.

So basically something like Oracle Forms or DotNetMushroom Rapid Application Developer. But for .NET and SQLite if possible.

Answer 1

Hi

I'd suggest you keep going with WinForms based apps..you can do a lot (as you probably know) with drag and drop and databinding.

You could look at 3rd party based products eg DevExpress.

Good luck

Answer 2

You can use visual studio or monodevelop and winforms, with either Visual basic or C# as language, as for Java you could use netbeans, it has a nice GUI designer.