lyx_mirror/src/frontends/xforms/forms

All .fd files go in this directory.
Each .fd file should have just one form in them

NOTE: An exception to the above is any tabbed form which 
      xforms requires multiple forms to create.  In that case
      the group of forms constitutes one gui form.

All forms should be named form_xxx and saved into a file by the same name.
For example, the copyright notice is called form_copyright and is stored in
form_copyright.fd.  Its used by class FormCopyright.  If you match this pattern
the fdfix.sh script will do nearly all the conversions for you.  That'll make
updating the source incredibly easy.

Name all buttons and other form components that are likely to cause a callback.
The names should be of the form:  button_ok, radio_group_item and so on.

Enter the full name of the callback eg.:
        C_FormCopyrightOkCB

That is, they all have the same format: C_##FormName##CallbackName.
Your code will then need to use the appropriate macro to setup this C callback
function which will in turn call the corresponding static class member function
of the form FormName::CallbackName.  You should be able to copy the macro
entries from a similar dialog for reuse without having to change anything.

The name of the wrapped dialog will be dialog_ eg.
        typedef struct {
        ...
        } FD_form_copyright;

        FD_form_copyright * dialog_;

If you follow these simple rules then the generated code for create_form can
be directly used as the FormXxxx::build method without any extra editting to
make it work.  Every forms implementation will follow a very simple pattern
and make it easier to maintain.

The easiest way to fit into this pattern is to copy an existing dialogs
implementation and adjust it to suit keeping the variable names the same.
In addition a lot of work can be saved by using the code that has already been
written in the "lyx" module of the LyX CVS repository. This is where the old
development branch is kept.  The code there will need to be modified slightly
to meet these new guidelines.  In addition, an earlier generation signalling
system was used in that code. A conversion script called gtmmconvert2 is 
available from the gtk-- distribution.  It updates all the signals to use
libsigc++.

Don't reinvent the wheel.  There's 18 months worth of code in the "lyx"
module that you should at least use as a guide even if you don't actually make
direct use of it.
 
Allan. (ARRae)