Methods, systems, and computer program products for centrally managing user interface state information for a visual user interface development tool. Component and development tool behavior is centralized in a behavior service that allows behaviors to be defined at development time. The behavior service catches messages that are generated within the visual user interface development tool and routes the message to determine behaviors available within the development tool. If a suitable behavior is available, the behavior is used to process the message. Similar to behaviors, during development time the behavior service may store one or more glyphs with corresponding glyph behavior for a component within the development tool. These glyphs are capable of hit testing and painting themselves, and may be organized into one or more adorner layers that can be independently disabled and enabled.