Update: This library is out of date, please see Version 2.

I am excited to present: The first Axure stencil library.

Preview the HTML

Demo the HTML OR  Download the Axure (.rp) file

The excellent Yahoo Design Stencil Kit has canned wireframe objects for Visio and Omnigraffle.  Unfortunately, no such kit can be found for Axure, a much hotter design tool for prototyping rich interactions.  If you’re an interaction designer and have avoided trying Axure out… stop avoiding.  It’s great.

In this first release, I’ve compiled the simple and advanced widgets that I use in day-to-day prototyping.  Are they perfect? No.  But they will give new Axure users an idea of what’s possible, and hopefully inspire advanced users with techniques they hadn’t previously used.  Note: This was created in Axure version 5.0.0.1515, no guarantees that it will work in older versions.

Interesting Widgets in this Library

  • Calendar
  • Embedded Video
  • Expand/Collapse Animation
  • Inline Edit
  • Lightbox
  • Live Search
  • Photo Scroller
  • Post a Message
  • Rating
  • Tabs

Boring but Useful Widgets in this Library

  • A bunch of nicely aligned form elements with labels
  • Rulers
  • Various lengths of Lorem Ipsum text

35 Responses

  1. Gravatar Icon 1 K

    This is great!

  2. Gravatar Icon 2 SørenØ

    Hi

    The demo of your master library looks good, but how do I use it in Axure?
    Can you supply a .rp file?

  3. Gravatar Icon 3 SørenØ

    I had problem downloading the file, my browser thought it was a zip file, and when un-zipping it showed a lot of different folders within that file. I renamed the file, from .zip to .rp and now it works. Thanks again for sharing this…

  4. Gravatar Icon 4 Loren

    Hey SorenO, I’m not sure why the browser thinks it’s a zip, I have it placed as an RP file and it works over here. Thanks for posting your fix, I’ll see if I can recreate the problem and figure out why it’s doing that.

  5. Gravatar Icon 5 Don

    Sick! Now in design review meetings you can avoid the “Does that do (whatever)?” questions! Nice job compiling all the useful info. in one spot.

  6. Gravatar Icon 6 Tom Lobato

    great work!
    will be much util for my projects!!

  7. Gravatar Icon 7 Marielle Winarto

    Thanks for sharing!

  8. Gravatar Icon 8 seovision

    Thanks for that nice work! :)

  9. Gravatar Icon 9 Terry

    I’m having a similar problem with downloading the zip. I ‘m getting folders with unusable content. And. I’m not sure how to get to the new widgets when I’m in Axure.

    The widgets are excellent (demo)

  10. Gravatar Icon 10 Fred Beecher

    Loren & Soren: V5 .rp files *are* ZIP files, and the file extension doesn’t fool some browsers. Renaming is the only thing you can really do.

  11. Gravatar Icon 11 Loren

    Thanks so much Fred, I’ll update the post accordingly. I tried a couple browsers (FF, Safari/win, Opera, IE7) and of course IE is the culprit :)

  12. Gravatar Icon 12 Patricia

    Just wanna say thank you. We’re doing something very similar here in Rio de Janeiro!

  13. Gravatar Icon 13 Harry

    Great, could someone take this a step further and get something we could all contribute too?

  14. Gravatar Icon 14 Julius

    Thanks, great file.

    “Great, could someone take this a step further and get something we could all contribute too?”

    Yes, Axure should make some sort of widget sharing space. Like how the extensions for Firefox are presented, where you can see the most downloaded, the ones with the best scores and newest. People could leave comments, etc.

    The best widgets could be integrated in the program itself. Or added to Axure like an extension so you only have to add them once and can make use of them for all your next projects quickly.

    Another challenge; since the dropdown example shows animation can be done. Who’s the first to create a working Pong in Axure? :)

  15. Gravatar Icon 15 Gitika

    Thanks a bunch for sharing this. I am a new Axure user and this was very useful to get a good overview of the possibilities! :)

  16. Gravatar Icon 16 Mark Raheja

    great to see. my company is exploring using Axure. having said that, i work on a Mac. any recommendations for an Axure-like prototyping tool for Mac? i have the sense that there aren’t any of it’s calibre…but would be thrilled if that wasn’t the case.

  17. Gravatar Icon 17 Loren

    @Julius: Absolutely, I’ll be speaking with the Axure team about such a site.

    @Mark: I know some Mac users who run Axure on Parallels ( http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/ ), and that’s what I plan on doing once I make the switch. Otherwise, Omnigraffle seems to be the choice program for Mac, but it is more comparable to Visio than Axure because it doesn’t support rich interactions.

  18. Gravatar Icon 18 R Thomson

    I downloaded the Axure stencil file, but I am not able to access the “tab” component on the Advanced page. I can only scroll down to the Post a Message component. Any ideas on how to access the content below the Post a Message widget?

    Thanks

  19. Gravatar Icon 19 R Thomson

    I found a way to access the tab component by using the master for tab.

  20. Gravatar Icon 20 Loren

    Axure seems to have a limit of about 5000px vertically in each file. You can zoom out to see further down if you want.

    However, all the widgets are included as Masters, and that’s the easiest way to access them.

  21. Gravatar Icon 21 Gustavo Gil

    Great work!! I’m trying to do this library for a while ago, but I couldn’t find time…
    Congratulations to you and let’s add more widgets to this archive!
    Let’s find a way to turn this library in a kickoff to a Version 2 collaborative project!

    Congrats again!
    Gil

  22. Gravatar Icon 22 Guru

    Excellent stuff

    Thanks for sharing with us… :)

    Congrats
    Guru

  23. Gravatar Icon 23 Richard

    Excellent! Many thanks to you.
    I’m planning to create Axure RP format for Yahoo Design Stencil Kit, too.
    Here are some samples that I build for Axure RP Chinese users.
    http://userxper.com/topics/axure-rp-samples

    Could I translate your library into Chinese?

  24. Gravatar Icon 24 Harry

    @Mark I work on a Mac and run Axure through VM Fusion njo problem (Parallels works fine too) make sure you have enough RAM tho as can get a little sluggish without. The added bonus is each time I use Axure I get to remember why I stopped using a PC, so hope they will bring out a Mac version soon.

  25. Gravatar Icon 25 Loren

    @Richard, absolutely, feel free to translate and redistribute as long as you attribute the original to me and link back to the site. I’ll be happy to link to your translated file, as well.

  26. Gravatar Icon 26 Konrad

    Loren, this is great work. Thanks!

  27. Gravatar Icon 27 Pero

    Which files exactly should be renamed. Files in root? The version file also? Sorry but I don’t get it. Thank you for your help.

  28. Gravatar Icon 28 Pero

    Ok. I fund out that also Safari for Mac has a problem with the download. Mac users – use Firefox for downloading the .rp files.

  29. Gravatar Icon 29 Sinjah

    Do you have a working design pattern for version 4.6?

  30. Gravatar Icon 30 Rogério Pereira

    These libraries are very useful.

    Congratulations on the initiative.

    Rogerio Pereira

  31. Gravatar Icon 31 Krista Kostuch

    My pain is gone! Thank you so much!!

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