If you want to know more about expanders, this doc is for you.

I'm writing a better documentation, but in the meantime read this and  the
examples... ;-)


Expanders, what are they?
=========================

Well, they're shared libraries that can give IE the  ability  of  managing
almost every object you could want to use in your GUI.

So far, they're in the "experimental stage": that means only that  I  have
not  tried  very  much  them...  ;-)  By now I've just wrote three modules
(described below), but since they work, I've decided  to  insert  them  in
this release. :)

Anyway, I'm going to write some expanders  which  you're  going  to  like.
Honest. ;-)


If you write a new expander, I will be very glad if you could send me  it:
by  snail  mail  or  uuencoded by e-mail (of course, if you write a 200 Kb
one, don't even think about sending it that way ;-).

Anyway, if you start from the source of the ones I've made, you'll be able
to create a new expander in about 5 minutes. B-)


NOTE WELL: when writing a new IEX module, be sure to use 37  (or  a  number
lower  than  that)  as  main  version number! If some new functions will be
requested in the expander, IE will check if the version of the IEX is >=38!


Some notes on xxx.desc files
============================

Reading the sources, you can easily infer  that  the  directives  used  in
xxx.desc files are all defined by the expander (except for ##end).

That means that every expander can have its own directives. Anyway,  you'd
better use these standard names:

RENDPRI
Render priority. *Compulsory* for ALL objects which need rendering.
IE's internal objects have priority = 0.

GLOBAL
Global variables.

DATA
Objects' data.

SUPPORT
Support routine(s).

SUPPORT-FA
Font-Adaptive support routine(s).

HEADER
Stuff to be written in the .h file.

RENDER
Rendering instructions.

INCLUDE
Include files needed.

...



As to the formatting codes, you could use these:

%o  -   Object label
%w  -   Window label
%x  -   Left Edge
%y  -   Top Edge
%W  -   Width
%h  -   Height
%f  -   Freedom
...



--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a short description of the expanders shipped with IE:

Gauge.iex: with this expander, you can add&use in a very simple way
	   fuel-gauges in your programs. Thanks to Gian Maria Calzolari
	   for its original source.

BackFill.iex: do you like the backfill of ReqTools requesters?
	      Well, you can add it just with a click of your mouse... ;)

BevelFill.iex: (to be used with BackFill.iex)
	       Useful to build beautiful requesters.


You can see an example of these expanders in the "IEXTest.gui" file.

Have fun,
	 Wiz