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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Enlightenment Developer Documentation</TITLE>
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<TABLE WIDTH=100% BORDER=0 CELLPADDING=0 CELLSPACING=0 STYLE="page-break-before: always">
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<TR>
<TD WIDTH=100% VALIGN=TOP>
<P CLASS="western" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0pc"><IMG SRC="enlightenment.png" NAME="Graphic1" ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=320 HEIGHT=320 BORDER=0><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=5><B>Enlightenment</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0pc"><BR>
</P>
<P CLASS="western" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 6pt">Version
0.17.0 </FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0pc"><BR>
</P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>What
is Enlightenment?</B> </FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Enlightenment
is a Window Manager for X11. This is the latest incarnation of
code of the Enlightenment window manager (often referred to in
short as WM). This WM is built on the EFL (Enlightenment
Foundation Libraries) that have been worked on very hard over the
last few years. These libraries provide a sound base on which to
build the WM and related tools, utilities, and applications.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Right
now if you are just a "user" this code is NOT for you.
You're on your own. If you are a developer wanting to work on the
code - read on. But first we should take a break for some
history... </FONT></FONT>
</P>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<HR>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>A
Brief History of Time... err Enlightenment</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">In
the past E has undergone 1 major rewrite since release DR
(Development Release) 0.1. This rewrite occurred for DR 0.14). DR
0.17 heralds another major rewrite. We have to be honest here. The
reason for this is the fact that we got lazy. Design went out the
window in favor of quick fixes and fast features. Too many people
worked on the code with too little care and attention to detail.
Large design mistakes were made, that to undo would be paramount to
half a rewrite. Patches were accepted without taking care to look at
them in detail, clean them or even reject them if not “well
done” enough for E's code. Thus the decision was made to fix
things once and for all and split things up, have well defined
interfaces (the EFL library API's) and clean and consistent code and
naming schemes. No it's not perfect - probably it will never be, but
we are trying. It is a massive improvement over anything
Enlightenment had before, and we are proud enough to probably say
it's some of the better API's and code of any available in the world
or used in any application or WM. It's not the best, but it's pretty
good. In doing this rewrite and split, we aim to not make those
mistakes again that happened before DR 0.17.0.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">With
Enlightenment and EFL's massive break-up into smaller sized chunks,
many users will complain about “how hard it is to install”
because there are so many libraries and inter-dependencies to handle.
We believe this is not our job, but the job of a package management
system to handle. We have documented the dependencies for people to
follow, but if anything, we aim to split things up more to make
maintenance, in the long term, an easier task. So in an effort to
avoid them, Here is a quick style and design guide for working on
this code. Please follow it, and if what you want to do doesn't fit
in, please discuss it first. Discuss your designs on the e-devel
(enlightemment-devel@lists.sourceforge.net) mailing list. Make your
code consistent and easy to follow - make it follow the style of the
rest in function naming, variable naming, access functions etc. Use
existing infrastructures - or extend them cleanly as needed. Just
because an infrastructure or system doesn't provide an accessor or
way of doing something does NOT mean you can't add it. Choose a clean
“correct” implementation over a nasty hack, all the time.
You get the idea. Now, on to the style guide.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Enlightenment
Stylin'</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Firstly
comes naming. All functions are name spaced. The EFL libraries begin
with library_something_something. It is object oriented naming so you
will have system_subsystem_subsystem_object_verb() as a name. For
example: e_config_load() or e_border_move() etc. All functions are
all lower-case with underscores between "words". All
functions that are accessed outside a file must have a prototype in
the file's header. All files have their code file (e_file.c) and a
header (e_file.h). The main "master" header (e.h) includes
all the smaller ones. All functions within that file are the same
name as the file. i.e. e_frog.c contains functions called
e_frog_something(). All internal functions only used within that file
should be declared as static and should begin with an underscore.
i.e. _e_frog_something(). All "local" globals (global to
that file only) should be declared static and beginning with _e_frog
just like functions. All static local functions should be at the end
of the file. All static function prototypes should be first at the
top of each file. All static local variables should come next, then
followed by the accessible functions. Any system that has "state"
should have an init and shutdown function. The init and shutdown
functions should be called from e_main.c during startup and shutdown
of the WM. It is encouraged that even systems that do not have state
have an init and shutdown call pair, just in case in future they will
gain state internally.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Any
system that returns objects (allocated structures) should probably
use the E_Object system as a parent. See examples on its use in the
code. E_Object provides a simple object wrapper with reference
counting, object pointer and type checking and safety that should,
runtime, trap a lot of potential problems and let the programmer know
about them. Use the object type checking macros for checking if an
object passed into a function as a parameter is a valid object.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Keep
to the indentation and spacing style thats there - it makes it easier
to read if all the code matches. All functions called as "callbacks"
should be called _e_system_cb_something. The "cb" denotes
that that function may get called by other code, maybe unpredictably,
at any time in response to an event, timer, or something mostly out
of the control of the program itself. Functions such as the free
function for an object aren't the same kind of callback, since they
are predictable and controllable, so they do not get "cb"
in their name.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">So
that's the quick rundown on basic coding style. More will likely be
added to this list, but the best way to put it all is "look at
what's there and follow the same style".</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Tree
Layout</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">The
E17 source tree is well structured, with a location for everything.
In the top-level directory you will find a src directory that is the
master directory for all the C source code for the WM and components.
You will also find a doc and data directories. The doc directory
contains all documentation (this document for example).</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">The
data directory contains all cross-platform data needed for the WM to
run as well as a basic default theme that it also needs to run.
Currently the default theme is not complete at all and is no
indication of Enlightenments final look when it is released. It is
only just enough to make it work and demonstrate an example of how to
make a theme. There is also other data used for things like low-level
error dialogs (used for example if the theme doesn't work) as well as
a default font and other system data such as data for the splash
screen displayed while Enlightenment starts up.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">The
src directory contains 3 main repositories of code. They are bin, lib
and modules. The bin directory contains all the source code for the
WM itself and any primary executables it uses curing execution. The
modules directory contains all plug-in modules that E17 can load and
unload dynamically at runtime, allowing the WM to be extended even
after it has been compiled and installed by users, other developers
or by the E development team itself. These modules are intended to
provide clean modular boundaries for certain features of
Enlightenment too, so if a feature isn't used it doesn't have to use
any resources at all. Each module lives in its own subdirectory with
the code and special module specific data like images, Edje .eet
files etc. that are specific to that module. See further on for more
information on modules.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Design
Ethos</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">As
for design, Enlightenment doesn't strictly follow a conservative WM
design. It does some things quite differently, with the aim of
providing more features with simpler internal design to achieve more
features with more solidity than a conservative design. An example of
this is the fact that E17 does away completely with the root window
and puts all managed windows within a virtual root. Virtual roots are
valid to be used in WM's but are rarely used and many client
applications are badly written to hunt for windows on the screen
ASSUMING there is no virtual root. These are bugs in the respective
applications (some of which are: Mozilla, xwininfo, xprop, xkill)
which when searching for an application window should walk the window
tree correctly. The reason for Enlightenment to adopt virtual roots
is not to make users annoyed or force application developers to
change their code, but to allow certain things to be done much more
efficiently. A virtual root allows the WM to scroll windows
seamlessly and all in sync by using window gravity and resizing of
the virtual root container. It also allows the WM to simulate
different resolutions very easily since it can control the virtual
root window, which is not normally possible to do with the real root
window.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Managers</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Managers
are the basic unit of window management. One Manager object is create
per root window to manage. For more people, even if they run Xinerama
across multiple screens, there is only 1 root window, and thus E17
will only ever have 1 Manager object. If the user runs traditional
Multihead there will be 1 root window per screen, that may be a
different size and color depth. E17 will create 1 Manager object per
screen in this situation. The Manager object handles redirection WM
specific events for the root window into the WM, thus effectively
being able to trap several kinds of events before a client gets to
perform them, thus enabling it to be a WM. A Manager object actually
creates a window the size of the root window it manages and covers
the root window up completely. Each Manager object may contain 1 or
more Container objects which in-turn create their own child windows
of the Manager window.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Containers</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Container
objects create their own windows to CONTAIN managed window frames,
the desktop window (the desktop background is actually just a big
window that is always kept below all frame windows that contains a
canvas for displaying the desktop background and all desktop objects
such as a launcher bar, file icons, etc. etc.). The Container is
responsible for holding this together and also managing a list of
“obscuring” objects that fully obscure the desktop
canvas, so it can help optimize drawing to the desktop canvas by
avoiding to draw parts of the desktop background canvas that cannot
be seen at all. This list is also used to draw soft drop shadows on
the desktop canvas by the Dropshadow module. The Container object
managed the desktop background, which is actually a complete EDJE
object. This may seem strange as a simple JPEG or PNG or GIF may be
enough, but by using an EDJE object for the background, the desktop
wallpaper can be animated, react to events and input, scale
intelligently (not just “stretch” or “tile”),
where the desktop wallpaper designer can specify what elements of the
wallpaper scale, align, where and how, if they tile, overlay,
underlay each other, and how.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Currently
the Container only responds to configuration change events to change
the background, which needs to be a path to a Edje .eet file that
contains a Edje group of the key “desktop/background”. It
will load this group, if present in the file as the background. What
it needs is a configuration tool that can browse the filing system
and directories for .eet files that are like this, display thumbnails
and previews, allow a user to select a new background and maybe
specify if the background file should change between different
virtual desktops (which are currently not implemented), and also be
able to browse normal JPEG, PNG etc. files and “import”
them into a users wallpaper database (a directory of wallpaper .eet
files) and thus convert into a Edje .eet file, which now retains the
scaling, tiling and other preferences the user selected within the
file. The user can now give this file to others and it will retain
the same information, without them needing to know if the wallpaper
needs to tile as a pattern, stretch etc.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">The
desktop canvas is also shared by many modules that may display things
like battery meters, cpu load, launcher bars, drop shadows etc. on
the desktop background. The desktop canvas lets this be a bit more
organized than it would be with a “free for all” drawing
to the root window under more conservative WM's.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Borders</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Borders
are the frame outside an application window that is controlled by the
WM and that holds the application window within, and allows users to
move, resize, shade, lower, close and otherwise control windows. This
is currently buggy and not very useful and needs work in combination
with the Manager system.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Menus</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Enlightenment
has its own Menu widget code to allow for highly themable menus that
match your WM's theme. These menus are intended to act as ways to
launch programs, select actions to perform with context sensitive
menus and to provide basic on/off and option select options for
simple enabling and disabling of features of states on objects. The
menu code is fairly solid, but incomplete. It is efficient, able to
let the user navigate with the keyboard, mouse wheel or mouse. It
currently needs work to support shaped menu windows, be able to add,
delete and modify menu items while the item is still realized, and a
set of other things listed in the TODO list at the top of the
e_menu.c source file.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Modules</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Modules
are a new and powerful way to extend E17 by being able to load and
execute code during runtime that may be shipped with E17 or even
developed after installation as enhancements and additions. This
system still needs work in the configuration department, knowing what
modules to load and not load, if they are to be enabled once they are
loaded etc. It is possible to have “dormant” modules that
are loaded but not enabled. They will use memory and resources for
the module entry and the binary executable code loaded into memory,
but nothing else. An enabled module will also use resources for
objects, images, etc. etc.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Dropshadow
Module</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
module demonstrates the Container shape system allowing a module to
monitor obscuring shapes in a container. This lets the module, in
this case, draw soft shadows under these obscuring shapes. It is a
fairly simple module and also demonstrates a module that has no
visible elements on the screen you can click on or control directly
with the mouse or keyboard. It could do with some optimization work
with the blur algorithm, like clipping out the obscuring shape
entirely from the blurring algorithm, and perhaps finding a way of
blurring using a Gaussian blur that is faster.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>IBar
Module</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">The
IBar module is a template for doing a “launcher panel” in
E17. It allows the user to manage a list of frequently used
applications to go into the IBar's panel. It is an attempt to unify
the configuration of “bars” in E17 so if a user changes
launcher bar modules, they can retain at least most of the basic
configuration, like what applications are in the bar, and so-on. The
IBar has some unique characteristics allowing a lot of applications
to be held in a small bar, by having it auto-scroll on mouse over to
the desired location in the list. It uses the Application interface
to fetch a list of applications and monitor this list for changes on
disk. The IBar also allows itself to be resized and dragged around
the edges of the screen, set to fill a edge, auto-size to fit its
contents, or be a fixed size.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">It
needs work to be done on auto hide and auto show, so on an auto show
it could signal other parts of E17, for example, to slide all windows
out of the way, or other such features. It needs work to display
application names, descriptions and other such information as well.
It also needs to support the icon size changing on the fly as well as
saving and loading its configuration, On of the largest pieces of
work is to support subdirectories in the bar's application list. How
best to do this is still up in the air. For now this isn't supported.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Test
Module</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
is just a test module for playing with new module features. It will
not make its way into a final E17 release, but can be used as a bare
skeleton for building a new module.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Applications</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
subsystem is responsible for being able to list applications held in
E17 specific application directories. This system can inform other
parts of E17 and modules of changes, such as an application being
deleted or added, its name or icon changed, the order of applications
in a directory changing, an application being executed or displaying
its window, or finishing execution. It can share the application
lists between multiple systems to save RAM and CPU and I/O in loading
them multiple times.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">It
may be of surprise to find E17 is not loading the XML, .desktop
entries etc. etc. than KDE and GNOME use. In all honesty that system
is a little overcomplicated and hard to keep up with. It also is not
as robust as E17's system. With E17's system the images for the icons
are within the application file. They cannot be separately deleted.
Also using an Edje .eet file for the application entry allows for
fully scalable and animated icons as well, with excellent compression
abilities. The intent is to have external tools that can import and
create such files FROM existing system databases of applications and
monitor these for changes, reflecting those changes in Enlightenments
application directories.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>IPC</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">IPC
(inter process communication) is provided in E17 as a mechanism for
another application to send commands and requests to Enlightenment
and receive responses with information. This mechanism is intended to
allow external utilities to be written and ask Enlightenment to do
things via a communications channel built into the WM. E17 uses the
Ecore IPC system to do this. So far it support no commands at all,
but will accept clients connecting. Many commands need to be
implemented here, such as being able to ask E17 to load or unload a
module, change background, change focus mode, theme, restart etc.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Objects</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
provides a basic Object Oriented handling system for E17. Any major
“object” in E17 should use this system for handling
reference counting, destruction and creation of objects, as it
provides safety mechanisms to check if an object has accidentally
been destroyed and still has a pointer to it, keep references on
objects intact etc. This should be used as much as possible, as well
as the macros it provides for checking on entry points into subsystem
functions etc.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Pointers</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
subsystem handles setting of X mouse cursors in an abstract fashion.
In theory E just looks at a cursor as RGBA pixel data. In future
Ecore will be expanded to be able to set full color cursors in X as
well as monochrome versions of them. Currently it is very simplistic
loading a fixed PNG as a cursor. This needs to be improved.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Box</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
is a basic Evas Smart Object that acts as a horizontal or vertical
box layout container. It needs more features for layout, like better
non homogeneous layout. This is a handy object that is sued by menus
and the IBar module for starters.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Icons</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
is an Evas Smart Object that creates a icon display object That
handles scaling the icon sensibly within the object bounds, so the
application doesn't have to handle trying to retain aspect ratio for
the object. This is a simple smart object and indicative of possibly
more in future to go into E17's code to save time and effort.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Paths</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
helps E17 find files in a list of paths/directories. There isn't a
lot to say about this except that it works and may need some minimal
expansion in future.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>User
Information</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
returns information about a user such as their home directory. This
will expand in future.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Virtual
and Multiple Desktops</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
is not implemented yet.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Error
Dialogs</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
displays very basic error dialogs right now, either as text in the
console inf E17 isn't ready to run graphically yet, This needs to be
made more robust, so it can display errors if it cannot find the font
and images for the basic error dialog. It should also be expanded to
support fully themed dialogs if the theme loads properly and properly
supports theming of dialogs, so dialogs look good.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Initialization
Splash Screen</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">This
keeps the user amused while E17 starts up and launches all programs.
For now it is artificially fixed to stay up for 4 seconds so you can
enjoy its radiant splendor, as E17 starts so quickly you'd never see
it, but in future it will stay up until the WM is all ready to go.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Configuration</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Loading
and saving configuration is a big task. E17 uses Ecore Config as its
underlying layer for saving and loading configuration. The E17 Config
system simply sets up all listeners for when configuration values
change, loads all the initial configuration values, and saves them
when and if they change internally. It needs work to make it much
simpler as many more config values will be added and it needs to be
more efficient ad loading them if they change runtime via a listener
(the number of listeners needs to be reduced), so maybe loading
config values in sections/groups and deferring a reload in a Ecore
Job would limit the reloading effects. Also declaring config values
and how to load and declare them is required. Maybe a big table with
default values, min, max, step, descriptions etc.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>File
Operations</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans">Files
need to be accessed, listed, found, examined as part of E17 running.
This file has simplified, easy-to-use functions for doing anything
related to files. This file will expand over time as more file
operations are needed.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><B>Miscellaneous
Utilities</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P CLASS="western" STYLE="margin-left: 4.73pc"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><FONT FACE="Bitstream Vera Sans">Things
that are useful in many places but do not have enough scope to have a
file of their own go into this file.</FONT></FONT></P>
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