# Controls

## Introduction

This section covers the Gum Forms controls — a set of interactive UI controls built on top of the Gum layout system. Forms controls combine visual appearance with built-in interaction logic, making it straightforward to build game UI without writing low-level input handling code.

## How Forms Controls Differ from Raw GraphicalUiElement Usage

When you use a raw `GraphicalUiElement` (or one of the standard visuals like `SpriteRuntime` or `ColoredRectangleRuntime`), you get full layout control but no interaction logic. Forms controls add:

* **Built-in interaction logic** — buttons respond to clicks, text boxes accept keyboard input, list boxes handle selection, and so on.
* **Default visuals** — each control ships with a default appearance so it works out of the box without a Gum project file.
* **State machines** — controls automatically transition between visual states (e.g., `Enabled`, `Disabled`, `Highlighted`, `Pushed`) in response to user input.

## FrameworkElement — The Base Class

Every Forms control inherits from `FrameworkElement`. It provides the common foundation shared by all controls, including:

* `IsEnabled` — disables a control so it stops receiving input.
* `IsFocused` — tracks whether the control currently has keyboard focus.
* Layout shortcuts (`X`, `Y`, `Width`, `Height`, `Anchor`, `Dock`) that forward to the underlying `Visual` property.
* Data binding support via `SetBinding` and `BindingContext`.

For details on these shared members, see the [FrameworkElement](/gum/code/controls/frameworkelement.md) section.

All controls can be tested on [XnaFiddle](https://xnafiddle.net/), so feel free to try them out there.

## Available Controls

* [Button](/gum/code/controls/button.md)
* [CheckBox](/gum/code/controls/checkbox.md)
* [ComboBox](/gum/code/controls/combobox.md)
* [FrameworkElement](/gum/code/controls/frameworkelement.md)
* [Grid](/gum/code/controls/grid.md)
* [ItemsControl](/gum/code/controls/itemscontrol.md)
* [Label](/gum/code/controls/label.md)
* [ListBox](/gum/code/controls/listbox.md)
* [ListBoxItem](/gum/code/controls/listboxitem.md)
* [Menu](/gum/code/controls/menu.md)
* [MenuItem](/gum/code/controls/menuitem.md)
* [PasswordBox](/gum/code/controls/passwordbox.md)
* [RadioButton](/gum/code/controls/radiobutton.md)
* [ScrollBar](/gum/code/controls/scrollbar.md)
* [ScrollViewer](/gum/code/controls/scrollviewer.md)
* [StackPanel](/gum/code/controls/stackpanel.md)
* [Slider](/gum/code/controls/slider.md)
* [Splitter](/gum/code/controls/splitter.md)
* [TextBox](/gum/code/controls/textbox.md)
* [Window](/gum/code/controls/window.md)


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