Quick GUI development for a simple app / trivia game

Question

What would be a good tool/IDE/app to build a GUI? Platform: preferably Windows, but can get away with Linux

Details:

• I am an embedded C programmer tasked with writing a simple game for New Year's Party...(some party)

• Game logic is very simple, grab args, alter string, display string on screen (command line version done..).

• However, the interface should look "cool" with preferably some transitional effects when changing values, and some neat visual ways of changing said values.

• I have a designer(not a programmer) friend who'll help with layout.

Having said all that, what would be your advice on how to build the GUI? Hand coding would seem counterproductive here.

EDIT: In a nutshell, I am looking for some WYSIWYGish tool to drag around entry boxes/buttons/whatnot and add a nice background picture, then glue it with my logic code.

Answer 1

When I need a quick (and even pretty) GUI for a project, I often consider HTML/CSS with Javascript. If youre familiar with these tools it can be extremely easy to put together an interactive layout. Another plus is that it the development cycle is ridiculously fast --- just refresh your web browser. Its also cross platform.

When you're playing the game, you can always fullscreen the browser so its not as obvious. Add some animations (jQuery is my suggestion) or images, and some people won't know the difference.

Answer 2

Visual Basic is a simple GUI creator. If you don't mind working with BASIC, then it is a quick tool. You can download the free Express edition, which is pretty full featured, here.

On Windows and C, you are pretty much stuck with the WinAPI. I believe there are C++ GUI generators, but I do not know of any C.

Answer 3

You could always us Python to slap together a quick little application that will run on either windows or Linux. You can even find a some suggestions for a WYSIWYG designer here.

Good luck, and hope this helps some.

Answer 4

If you want a WYSIWYG form designer for Windows you'd do well with one of these free downloads from Microsoft:

• Visual C# Express
• Visual Basic Express

Visual C# Express and Visual Basic Express allow to use the Windows Presentation Foundation which I haven't used, but will probably allow you to create the cool effects you're looking for.

Answer 5

QT comes with the QtDesigner which is as easy to use as the builtin VisualStudio Designer.

Another possibility would be Microsoft Expression Blend. It uses WPF (your code needs to be .NET for that, perhaps that would be no problem), which allows you to do the most fancy GUIs you've ever seen ;)
Sadly this one isn't a thing you could learn in a few days, but its worth the experience.