Google Unveils Drag and Drop UI Editor for Apps Script

Google is expanding the functionality of its Apps Script tool with a GUI Builder, a web app which enables users and developers to create the graphical interfaces of other web apps.

The new tool is designed to make it easy to build a professional looking application without needing vast coding experience.

"One of the most useful parts of Apps Script is the Ui service. UiApp lets you build a professional looking web app in just a few lines of code," Google's Corey Goldfeder wrote.

"For a lot of users, though, UiApp seems a bit daunting. It can be hard to visualize how small changes to your code affect the look of your app, or how adding a component in one place of the UI can shift the positioning of a component in another place. We know what that’s like - we write scripts too! That’s why we’re excited to unveil the new Apps Script GUI Builder," he announced.

One of the great things about Google services is that the company regularly enables third-party developers to build on top of them and incorporate them or some of their functionality into their own applications.

Google Apps Script is one example of this, the tool enables users to automate things, create custom web applications based on Google tools and now even create custom user interfaces via a graphical editor.

The UI tool enables users to create an interface for their scripts which in turn will make it easier for users of those scripts to control them. The UI elements look very familiar since they're borrowed from Google Apps' own UI, particularly Google Docs.

Using drag and drop in the WYSIWYG editor makes it especially easy to know what the UI will look like and to change it as needed. Once you've created the interface, all you have to do is add a snipped of code to your script.