added reference in new xml format

[org.ibex.core.git] / doc / reference.xml

<ibex-doc title="The Ibex Reference">
    
    Nitrogen Release
    
    by <link url="mailto:adam@ibex.org" text="Adam Megacz"/>
    
<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="Preface">
    
    This document is a <b>reference</b>. It is not a
    <b>specification</b> or a
    <b>tutorial</b>.
    
    This document does not guide the user gently through examples (as a
    tutorial would), and it doesn't provide enough detail and formality
    for a third party to construct a compatible re-implementation of the
    Ibex Core (as a specification would).
    
    Rather, the goal of this document is to completely describe every
    aspect of the environment that the Ibex Core provides to client
    applications, from the bottom up. If you want to be an Ibex expert,
    this is the right document to read. It is assumed that you are already
    familiar with XML and with either JavaScript or ECMAscript. If
    you are not familiar with ECMAscript, some reference materials are
    provided in <link section="Appendix G"/>
    
    The <i>shoehorn sequence</i> (how the Ibex Core gets onto the
    client's computer, and how it knows where to download the initial .ibex
    from) is not described in this document, since it will be different
    for every platform that Ibex is ported to.
    
    If you need to use or rely on some behavior you notice in the Ibex
    Core, but which is not clearly defined here, please post to <link
    url="http://lists.ibex.org/listinfo/users" text="the users mailing list"/>.
    
  </section>

<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="Key Concepts">

  <section title="Definitions">
    
    <definition term="The Core">
         Ibex itself; the native code (or Java bytecode) that runs on
         the client.  This term does not include the <i>shoehorn</i>
         or the <i>UI</i></definition>

    <definition term="The UI / The Application">
         a set of files (mostly XML, JavaScript, and PNG images)
         bundled up in a zip archive, ending with the "..ibex"
         extension.  Together, these files specify the appearance and
         behavior of the application's user interface.  Sometimes
         we'll refer to this as the ".ibex" to be clear that we're
         talking about the actual zip archive, rather than its visual
         appearance when rendered on the screen.</definition>

    <definition term="The Server">
         We will use the term "the server" to refer to any other
         computer which the client makes XML-RPC or SOAP calls
         to. Note that it is possible for the client and server to be
         the same machine.</definition>

    <definition term="The Shoehorn">
         this is a very small piece of code that is downloaded the
         first time a client uses Ibex. It downloads the Ibex core,
         verifies its signature, and launches it with the appropriate
         parameters indicating where to find the initial UI.  The
         Shoehorn works differently on every platform, and is outside
         the scope of this document.</definition>

    <definition term="put/write">
         In ECMAscript, when you change the value of a property on an
         object, you are <i>putting</i> to that property, or
         <i>writing</i> to it. For example, the ECMAscript expression
         "<tt>foo.bar = 5</tt>" <i>puts</i> the value 5 to the bar
         property on object foo.</definition>

    <definition term="get/read">
         In ECMAscript, when you access the value of a property on an
         object, you are <i>getting</i> that property, or
         <i>reading</i> from it. For example, the ECMAscript
         expression "<tt>return (3 + foo.bar)</tt>" <i>gets</i> the
         value of bar property on object foo and then adds 3 to it
         before returning the result.</definition>

    <definition term="JavaScript">
        We will use the terms JavaScript and ECMAScript
        interchangeably in this document.  The Ibex interpreter is not
        completely ECMA-compliant, however (see <link
        section="Appendix C"/> for details).  </definition>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Surfaces">

    Each top-level window in an Ibex UI is called a
    <i>surface</i>. There are two kinds of surfaces: <i>frames</i>, which
    usually have a platform-specific titlebar and border, and
    <i>windows</i>, which never have any additional platform-specific
    decorations.
    
    Whenever we refer to the size or position of a surface, we are
    referring to the size or position of the UI-accessible portion of the
    surface; this does not include any platform-specific decorations. This
    means that if you set the position of a frame to (0,0), the
    platform-specific titlebar will actually be off the screen on most
    platforms (it will be above and to the left of the top-left corner of
    the screen).
    
    Surfaces are not actual JavaScript objects; you cannot obtain a
    reference to a surface.  However, each surface is uniquely identified
    by its <i>root box</i>, described in the next section.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Boxes">

    A <i>box</i> is the fundamental unit from which all Ibex user
    interfaces are built.  Boxes can contain other boxes (known as
    <i>children</i>).  Each Surface has a single box associated with it
    called the <i>root box</i>; the root box and its children (and its
    children's children, and so on) form the surface's <i>box tree</i>.
    
    There are three ways to think of a box: as a rendered visualization on
    the screen (the "Visual Representation"), as a JavaScript object (the
    "Object Representation"), and as an XML tag (the "XML
    Representation").
    
    <font color=red>FIXME: diagram here</font>
    
    All three representations are equally valid, and being able to figure
    out what an action in one representation would mean in terms of the other
    two representations is crucial to a solid understanding of Ibex.
    
    </section>

  <section title="The Object Representation">

    Each box is a full-fledged ECMAscript object, and can store key-value
    pairs as properties.  Some of these keys have special meaning, which
    will be explained later.  Each box's numeric properties hold its
    <i>child boxes</i>. 
    
    </section>

  <section title="The Visual Representation">

    Each box occupies a rectangular region on the surface.  The visual
    appearance of a surface is created by rendering each box in its tree.
    Unless the <tt>clip</tt> attribute is <tt>false</tt>, each box will
    clip its childrens' visual representations to its own, so that the
    children appear "confined to" the parent.  Children are rendered after
    their parents so they appear "on top of" their parents (they obscure
    them).
    
    Each box has two major visual components, each with subcomponents:
    
    <font color=red>FIXME: diagram</font>
    
    <list type="unordered">

        A <b>path</b>, which consists of zero or more lines and
        curves.  The path may be filled with a color, gradient, or
        texture, and may be stroked with a line of a given thickness
        and color.  If the path is not specified, it defaults to the
        perimiter of the box.

            The path has an associated <b>strokecolor</b>, which is a
            color
            
            The path has an associated <b>strokewidth</b>, which is a
            number specifying the width of the stroke.
            
            The path also has a <b>fill</b>, which is either a color, gradient, or
            texture
        
            A single line of <b>text</b>, which can be rendered in
            different fonts, colors, and sizes.

        The text has an associated <b>font</b>, which currently can be
        any font supported by the <link url="http://www.freetype.org"
        text="FreeType2"/> library.
            
        The text also has an associated <b>fontsize</b>
            
        The text is drawn in an associated <b>textcolor</b>

    </list>

    These eight components plus the size of a box fully specify its
    appearance.  Every single box you see in Ibex is drawn only on the
    basis of these components and its size.
    
    </section>

  <section title="The XML Representation">

    A template (discussed in the next section) is an XML file which acts
    as a blueprint for constructing a tree of boxes.  We call this
    construction process <i>applying</i>, since unlike
    <i>instantiation</i>, you always apply a template to a pre-existing
    box, and you can apply multiple templates to the same box.  Each XML
    tag corresponds to a single box, or to another template which will be
    applied to that box.  For example, a <tt>scrollbar</tt> template, when
    applied, will construct a tree of boxes which has the visual
    appearance and behavior of a scrollbar.
    
    Although it is useful to think of the XML tags as being boxes, keep in
    mind that the XML representation is only a blueprint for constructing
    a tree of JavaScript objects.  Once the template has been
    instantiated, the XML is effectively "thrown away", and JavaScript code is
    free to alter the boxes.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Templates">

    Each template is an XML document whose root element
    is <tt>&lt;ibex></tt>.  Any text content of the root element is
    ignored, and may safely be used for comments.  The root element may
    have any of the following elements as children, each of which may
    appear no more than once, and which must appear in this order:
    
    Here is a sample Ibex file:
    
    <pre>
    <ibex xmlns="ibex.widget" xmlns:lib="ibex.lib">
        This is a sample Ibex file. Text up here is ignored.
        Copyright (C) 2004 Mustapha Mond.
        <static>
            // code here will be executed only once
        </static>
        <template cols="5">
            <box id="container"/>
            <checkbox/>
            <box>
                /* This has to be commented out or else it
                   will be treated as a script */
                <lib:scrollbar/>
            </box>
        </template>
    </ibex>
    </pre>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Applying an XML tag to a box">

    The following description of the box application is extremely detailed
    and precise; it is intended for UI designers who need to know the
    exact order in which each event happens.  <font color=RED>FIXME:
    easier description</font>.  While this whole process sounds very
    complex, it actually works pretty intuitively. The description below
    is given in great detail since most applications will wind up being
    unintentionally dependent on subtle features of this process.
    However, most of the time you can just pretend that the XML tags and
    the boxes are the same thing.
    
    To apply an XML tag <b>X</b> to a box <b>B</b>, perform the following
    operations, in this order:
    
    <list type="ordered">

        Allocate a fresh scope <b>s</b> whose parent scope is
        <b>B</b>.
        
        Process each child element or text segment of <b>X</b> in the
        order they appear in the document: For each <i>text
        segment</i> <b>t</b>:

            Treat <b>t</b> a JavaScript script, and execute it
            with <b>s</b> as the root scope.

        For each <i>child element</i> <b>x</b> of <b>X</b>:  

            Create a new box <b>b</b>.
            
            If the name of tag <b>x</b> is not <tt>"box"</tt> (in the
            default XML namespace), prepend the tag's namespace
            identifier uri (if any) to the name of the tag, and use
            the result as a key to retrieve a property from the root
            stream (defined later).  Interpret the resulting stream as
            a template and apply that template to <b>b</b>.
            
            (recursively) apply <b>x</b> to <b>b</b>.
            
            If <b>x</b> has an <tt>id</tt> attribute, declare a variable
            in <b>s</b> whose name is the value of the <tt>id</tt>
            attribute, prefixed with the <tt>$</tt> character, and whose
            value is <b>b</b>
            
            Copy any <tt>$</tt>-variables created during the application
            of <b>x</b> into scope <b>s</b>.
            
            Append <b>b</b> as the last child of <b>B</b>.
        
        Apply any attributes on <b>X</b> to <b>B</b>, except for
        <tt>id</tt>.  Since XML specifies that the order of attributes
        cannot be significant, Ibex processes attributes in
        alphabetical order by attribute name.  For example, if
        <b>X</b> has the attribute <tt>foo="bar"</tt>, then the
        equivalent of the statement <tt>B.foo="bar";</tt> will be
        performed, with the following exceptions:

            If the value portion of the attribute is the string
            <tt>"true"</tt>, put the boolean <tt>true</tt>. If the
            value is <tt>"false"</tt>, put the boolean <tt>false</tt>.
        
            If the value is a valid ECMAscript number, put it as a
            number (instead of a string).
                 
            If the value begins with a dollar sign (<tt>$</tt>),
            retrieve the value of the corresponding variable in
            <b>s</b> and use that value instead.
         
            If the value begins with a dot (<tt>.</tt>), prepend the
            attributes' namespace identifier uri (if any) and
            interpret the remainder as a property to be retrieved from
            the root stream (defined later).
    </list>

    The last two steps are referred to as the <i>initialization</i> of the
    node.  There are two important aspects of this ordering to be aware of:
             
    <list type="unordered">

        A given box will be fully initialized before its parent is
        given a reference to that box.  This way, parents can be
        certain that they will never wind up accessing a box when it
        is in a partially-initialized state.
        
        Attributes are applied <i>after</i> scripts are run so that
        the attributes will trigger any <i>traps</i> (defined later)
        placed by the script.

    </list>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Life Cycle of an Ibex Application">

    A user begins by specifying the URL of an Ibex application run.
    Usually this is done by visiting a web page which uses the
    <i>shoehorn</i> to install the core if it is not already on the user's
    machine, but you can also supply the URL on the command line.
    
    The Ibex Core downloads the .ibex for the application, loads it, applies
    the <tt>main.ibex</tt> template and renders it onto the screen, running
    any associated ECMAscript code.
    
    The user interacts with the application by clicking and moving the
    mouse, and by pressing keys on the keyboard.  These actions trigger
    fragments of JavaScript code which are designated to handle events.
    This JavaScript code can then relay important information back to the
    server using XML-RPC or SOAP, or it can modify the structure and
    properties of the user interface to change its appearance, thereby
    giving feedback to the user.
    
    <font color="red">
    DIAGRAM: graphic here showing the circular feedback cycle.
    </font>
    
    The Ibex core quits when the last remaining surface has been destroyed.
    
    </section>

  </section>
<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="Layout and Rendering">

    The size and position of every other box is determined
    by its properties, its childrens' sizes, and its parent's size and position.
    Box layout and rendering happens in four phases: <i>packing</i>,
    <i>constraining</i>, <i>placing</i>, and <i>rendering</i>.  The Core is careful to only
    perform a phase on a box if the box has changed in a way that
    invalidates the work done the last time that phase was performed.
      The
    packing and constraining phases are performed in a single traversal of
    the tree (packing is preorder, constraining is postorder), and the
    placing and rendering phases are performed in a second traversal of
    the tree (first placing, then rendering, both preorder).
    
    For brevity, the rest of this chapter deals only with width and
    columns.  Height and rows is treated identically and independently.
    Also, it is important to note that the term <i>minimum width</i> is
    not the same thing as the property <tt>minwidth</tt>, although they
    are closely related.
    
  <section title="The size of the root box">

    When the user resizes a window, Ibex changes the root box's
    <tt>maxwidth</tt> and <tt>maxheight</tt> to match the size chosen by
    the user and then determines the root box's size using the same sizing
    rules it uses for other boxes.
    
    Ibex will always attempt to prevent the
    user from making the surface smaller than the root box's
    <tt>minwidth</tt> and <tt>minheight</tt>.  If the <tt>hshrink</tt> or
    <tt>vshrink</tt> flag is set, Ibex will try to prevent the user from
    resizing the surface at all.  However, not all platforms give Ibex
    enough control to do this.
    
    </section>

  <section title="The alignment point">

    When talking about positioning, we will often refer to the
    <i>alignment point</i>.
    
    <list type="unordered">

        If the <tt>align</tt> property is <tt>"center"</tt>, then the
        alignment point is the center of the box.
        
        If the <tt>align</tt> property is <tt>"topleft"</tt>,
        <tt>"bottomleft"</tt>, <tt>"topright"</tt>, or
        <tt>"bottomright"</tt>, then the alignment point is
        corresponding corner of the box.
        
        If the <tt>align</tt> property is <tt>"top"</tt>,
        <tt>"bottom"</tt>, <tt>"right"</tt>, or <tt>"left"</tt>, then
        the alignment point is middle of the corresponding edge of the
        box.

    </list>

    <font color=red>FIXME: diagram</font>
    
    When positioning a child box, the alignment point is determined by the
    <i>parent's</i> <tt>align</tt> property.  When positioning a visual
    element (a texture, path, or text string) within a box, the alignment
    point is determined by the <i>box's own</i> <tt>align</tt> property.
    
    A simple way to think about this is that whenever there are two boxes
    involved in the decision, you should use the parent's alignment point.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Packing">

    of <i>cells</i> is created within the parent.  If the parent's
    <tt>cols</tt> property is set to 0, the cell grid has an infinite
    number of columns.  Either <tt>cols</tt> or <tt>rows</tt> must be
    zero, but not both.
        
    If a child's <tt>visible</tt> property is <tt>false</tt>, it does
    not occupy any cells (and is not rendered).  Otherwise, each child
    occupies a rectangular set of cells <tt>child.colspan</tt> cells
    wide and <tt>child.rowspan</tt> cells high.
        
    The Core iterates over the cells in the grid in the following
    order: if <tt>rows</tt> is 0, the Core iterates across each column
    before proceeding to the next row; otherwise rows come before
    columns.  At each cell, the Core attempts to place the <i>first
    remaining unplaced child's</i> top-left corner in that cell (with
    the child occupying some set of cells extending down and to the
    right of that cell).  If the parent has a fixed number of columns
    and the child's <tt>colspan</tt> exceeds that limit, the child is
    placed in column zero regardless, but only occupies the available
    set of cells (it does not "hang off the end" of the box).
    
    <img src="image/layout.png">
    
    <pre>
        <box cols="3">
            <box id="1" />
            <box id="2" rowspan="2" />
            <box id="3" colspan="2" />
            <box id="4" />
            <box id="5" colspan="2" />
        </box>
    </pre>
    
    Notes on the layout example:
    
    <list type="ordered">

        Box '3' doesn't fit in the gap after '2', nor in the gaps either
        side of '2' on the next row, hence it is pushed onto the 3rd row.

        Box '4' would fit in the gaps around '2', but must be placed
        <i>after</i> it's preceeding box, '3'.

    </list>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Constraining">

    <list type="ordered">
        
        Each box's minimum width is computed recursively as the
        maximum of:

            Its <tt>minwidth</tt>
             
            The width of the box's <tt>text</tt> (after applying the
            box's <tt>transform</tt>).
             
            The width of the box's path (after applying the box's
            <tt>transform</tt>) <i>if the box is <tt>packed</tt></i>.
             
            The width of the bounding box enclosing the box's cells.
            </list>
        
        The minimum width of each cell is computed as the minimum
        width of the box occupying it divided by the box's
        <tt>colspan</tt>.
        
        If a box's <tt>hshrink</tt> property is set to
        <tt>true</tt>, the box's maximum width is the same as its
        minimum width; otherwise it is the box's
        <tt>maxwidth</tt>.
        
        The maximum width of each cell is the <tt>maxwidth</tt> of
        the box occupying it divided by the box's
        <tt>colspan</tt>.

    </list>

    </section>

  <section title="Placing">

    <list type="ordered">
        
        Each column's <i>actual width</i> is set to the maximum
        <i>minimum width</i> of all the cells in that column.
        <b>NOTE:</b> although a column or row can be sized smaller
        than its "minimum width" or larger than its "maximum width", a
        box will <i>never</i> be smaller than its <tt>minwidth</tt> or
        larger than its <tt>maxwidth</tt>.
        
        Each column's maximum width is the largest maximum width of
        the cells in that column, but no smaller than the column's
        minimum width.
        
        The <i>slack</i> is the difference between the parent's width
        and the sum of its columns' actual width.  The slack is
        divided equally among the columns.  Any column which has
        exceeded its maximum width is set to its maximum width, and
        the difference is returned to the slack.  This process is
        repeated until the slack is zero or all columns are at their
        maximum width.
        
        Next, the rows and columns are positioned within the parent
        box.  The rows and columns are transformed according to the
        parent's <tt>transform</tt> property, and the bounding box of
        the resulting cells are placed such that the cells' alignment
        point coincides with the parent's alignment point (both
        alignment points are determined by the parent's <tt>align</tt>
        property).  <font color=red>FIXME: diagram</font>
    
        <b>Packed boxes:</b> Each packed box's actual position
        and size is then set to the aggregation of the actual sizes of
        the cells it spans.  If this size exceeds the box's maximum
        width, the box is sized to its maximum width and centered
        horizontally within the space occupied by its cells.
        <b>Non-packed boxes</b>: each non-packed box is transformed
        according to the parent's <tt>transform</tt> property and then
        positioned so that its alignment point is <tt>(child.x,
        child.y)</tt> pixels from the parent's alignment point (both
        alignment points are determined by the parent's <tt>align</tt>
        property).
        
    </list>

    </section>

  <section title="Rendering">

    Boxes are rendered in a depth-first, pre-order traversal.  Note that
    this may cause a non-packed box to overlap its siblings.
    
    <list type="ordered">
        
        If the box's <tt>transform</tt> property is non-null, the
        coordinate space is transformed accordingly for the rest of
        this phase and for the rendering of all children.
        
        If the box is packed and has a non-<tt>null</tt> path, the
        path is translated such that the alignment point of the path's
        bounding box coincides with the box's alignment point (both
        alignment points are determined by the box's <tt>align</tt>
        property).
        
        If a box has a path, that path is filled with the color,
        gradient, or image specified by the <tt>fill</tt> property and
        stroked with the color and width specified by the
        <tt>strokecolor</tt> and <tt>strokewidth</tt> properties.
        
        If the box has a non-<tt>null</tt> <tt>text</tt> attribute,
        the text is rendered in <tt>font</tt> with size
        <tt>fontsize</tt> and color <tt>textcolor</tt>.  The text is
        then translated such that the alignment point of the text's
        bounding box coincides with the box's alignment point (both
        alignment points are determined by the box's <tt>align</tt>
        property).
        
        The box's children are rendered (pre-prder traversal).

    </list>
    
    </section>

  </section>

<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="Box Properties">

  <section title="Rendering Properties">

    Every box has several special properties which control how it is
    drawn. In general, if you put an
    invalid value to a special property, no action will be taken -- the
    put will be ignored.
    
    <property name="strokecolor" type="string" default="clear">
             If the value is a 5-character hex string (<tt>#RGB</tt>),
             7-character hex string (<tt>#RRGGBB</tt>), 9-character hex
             string (<tt>#AARRGGBB</tt>), the box's stroke color will be set
             to that color. 
             If the value is one of the <link url="http://www.color.org/ICC-1A_1999-04.PDF" text="ICC"/> colors
             (the same set of color names supported by SVG), the stroke
             color be set to that color.
             If the value is <tt>null</tt>, the stroke color will be set to
             clear (<tt>#00000000</tt>).
             </property>
    
    <property name="strokewidth" type="int" default="1">
             The width (in pixels) to stroke the path with.
             </property>
    
    <property term="fill">
             This property can be set to any of the values specified for
             <tt>strokecolor</tt>.  
             Alternatively, if the value written is an object, its stream
             will be read and interpreted as a PNG, GIF, or JPEG image,
             which will become the texture for this box, and the box's
             <tt>minwidth</tt> and <tt>minheight</tt> properties will be
             automatically set to the dimensions of the image.
             </property>
    
    <property name="path" type="string" default="&quot;&quot;">
            The box's path.  The grammar and feature set
            supported are identical to that specified in <link url="http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/paths.html" text="SVG 1.1, section
            8"/>.
            </property>
    
    <property name="text" type="string" default="&quot;&quot;">
            The box's text; writing <tt>null</tt> to this property sets it
            to <tt>""</tt>.
            </property>
    
    <property name="font" type="stream" default="<tt>.ibex.font.sansserif</tt>">
            When an object is written to this property, its stream is read
            using the <link url="http://www.freetype.org" text="freetype2
            library"/>, and the resulting font is used to render the
            box's <tt>text</tt>.
            </property>
            
    <property name="fontsize" type="number" default="<tt>10</tt>">
            The size (in points) to render the text.
            </property>
            
    <property name="textcolor" type="number" default="black">
            The color in which to render the font; accepts the same values as <tt>strokecolor</tt>.
            </property>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Layout Properties">
    
    <property name="shrink" type="boolean" default="<tt>false</tt>">
        If set to <tt>true</tt>, this box will shrink
        (horizontally/vertically/both) to the smallest size allowed by
        its children and the bounding box of its path.
        </property>
    
    <property name="x" type="integer" default="<i>varies</i>">
        If the box is a root box, this is the (x/y)-coordinate of the
        surface; otherwise it is the distance between the parent's
        alignment point and this box's alignment point.
        </property>
    
    <property name="globalx" type="integer" default="<i>varies</i>">
        The distance between this box's (left/top) edge and the root
        box's (left/top) edge. A put to this property has the same
        effect as a put to the (<tt>x</tt>/<tt>y</tt>) property,
        except that it is relative to the root box rather than to this
        box's parent. <font color=red>FIXME is this fakeable?  How is
        distance measured?</font>
        </property>
    
    <property name="minwidth" type="integer" default="<tt>0</tt>">
        The desired minimum width and height.
        </property>
    
    <property name="maxwidth" type="integer" default="<tt>ibex.maxint</tt>">
        The desired maximum width and height.
        </property>
    
    <property name="width" type="integer" default="<i>varies</i>">
        When read, this is the (width/height) of this box.  Writing to
        this property is equivalent to writing to <i>both</i> the
        minimum and maximum (width/height).
        </property>
    
    <property name="cols" type="integer" default="<tt>0</tt>">
        The number of (columns/rows) in which to lay out the children of this
        box.  If set to zero, the number of (columns/rows) is unconstrained.
        Either <tt>rows</tt> or <tt>cols</tt> must be zero.  If
        <tt>0</tt> is written to <tt>cols</tt> when <tt>rows</tt> is
        <tt>0</tt>, the write is ignored.  If a nonzero value is
        written to <tt>cols</tt> when <tt>rows</tt> is nonzero,
        <tt>rows</tt> is set to <tt>0</tt>, and vice versa.
        </property>
    
    <property name="colspan" type="integer" default="<tt>1</tt>">
        The number of (columns/rows) that this box spans within its parent.
        </property>
    
    <property name="align" type="string" default="<tt>"center"</tt>">
        Determines the box's alignment point for positioning its text,
        texture, path, and children.
        </property>
    
    <property name="visible" type="boolean" default="<tt>true</tt>">
        If set to false, this box will be rendered as if its width and
        height were zero. If this is a root box, the associated surface
        will be hidden.
        When reading from this property, the value
        <tt>false</tt> will be returned if this box <i>or any of its
        ancestors</i> is not visible.  Thus it is possible to write
        <tt>true</tt> to a box's <tt>visible</tt> property and then
        read back <tt>false</tt>.
        </property>
    
    <property name="packed" type="boolean" default="<tt>true</tt>">
         The layout strategy for this box.
        </property>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Child Control Properties">
    
    During a box initialization, script-private references to a box's
    descendants with <tt>id</tt> attributes are placed on the box. These
    references allow scripts on that box to easily refer to descendant
    nodes created by the template in which the script appears. For
    example, these two blocks of code have exactly the same effect:
    
    <pre>
    <box>                     <box>
        <box id="foo"/>           <box/>
        $foo.color = "red";       var $foo = this[0];
                                  $foo.color = "red";
    </box>                    </box>
    </pre>
    
    The following special properties control how a box's children are laid
    out.  If a box has a non-null redirect target, reads and writes to these
    properties will be forwarded to the redirect target.
    
    The <tt>redirect</tt> attribute is very useful for hiding the
    internal structure of a widget, and for allowing widgets to act as
    "smart" containers for other widgets. For example, a menu widget might
    have an invisible child as its redirect target; this way, when boxes
    representing items on the menu are added as children of the menu
    widget, they do not appear until the menu is pulled down.
    
    <property name="numeric properties" type="int" default="">
        The <i>n</i>th child of box <tt>b</tt> can be accessed by reading from
        <tt>b[n]</tt>. The <i>n</i>th child can be removed by writing
        <tt>null</tt> to <tt>b[n]</tt> (the child will become parentless). A
        new child can be inserted <i>before</i> the <i>n</i>th child by
        writing it to <tt>b[n]</tt>; if the value written is already a child of
        <tt>b</tt>, it will be removed from <tt>b</tt> first. It is important
        to note that this behavior is different from ECMAscript arrays --
        writing a non-<tt>null</tt> value to <tt>b[n]</tt> does not eliminate
        the <i>n</i>th child; it merely shifts it over one position.  
        <b>Note:</b> Unlike most JavaScript objects, enumerating a Box's
        properties with the JavaScript <tt>for..in</tt> construct will
        enumerate <i>only</i> the box's children and not any other properties.
        </property>
    
    <property name="clip" type="boolean" default="<tt>true</tt>">
        If <tt>true</tt>, the visual representation of this box's
        children will be clipped to the boundaries of this box.
        <b>Note:</b> setting this property to <tt>false</tt> imposes a
        substantial performance penalty.
        </property>
    
    <property name="numchildren" type="integer" default="<tt>0</tt>">
        The number of children this box has.
        </property>
    
    <property name="redirect" type="box" default="<tt>thisbox</tt>">
        Writing to this property sets the box's redirect
        target. This property cannot be read from, and can only be
        written to once.
        </property>
    
    <property name="surface" type="" default="<tt>null</tt>">
        If this box has a parent, this property returns
        <tt><i>parent</i>.surface</tt>; otherwise it returns null.
        This property is a simple building block that the widget
        library uses to implement more complex functionality such as
        focus control and popups.
        </property>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Other Box Properties">
    
    <property name="cursor" type="string" default="<tt>null</tt>">
        The shape that the cursor should take when inside this
        box. Valid values are: <tt>"default"</tt>, <tt>"wait"</tt>,
        <tt>"crosshair"</tt>, <tt>"text"</tt>, <tt>"hand"</tt>, and
        <tt>"move"</tt>, as well as resizing cursors<tt>"east"</tt>,
        <tt>"west"</tt>, <tt>"north"</tt>, <tt>"south"</tt>,
        <tt>"northwest"</tt>, <tt>"northeast"</tt>,
        <tt>"southwest"</tt>, and <tt>"southeast"</tt>. Note that on
        some platforms, resize cursors for opposite directions (such
        as <tt>northwest</tt> and <tt>southeast</tt> are the
        same).
        If a box's cursor is <tt>null</tt>, its parent's cursor will
        be used. If the root box's cursor is null, the
        <tt>"default"</tt> cursor will be used.
        </property>

    <property name="mouse.x" type="integer" default="<i>varies</i>">
         The (horizontal/vertical) distance between the mouse cursor and this
         box's (left/top) edge. Puts to this property are ignored. This
         value will not be updated if the mouse is outside the root
         box of the surface and no button was pressed when it left.
        </property>
    
    <property name="mouse.inside" type="boolean" default="<tt>false</tt>">
        True if the mouse is inside the rendered region of this box or
        any of its children. This value will be false if the mouse is
        inside a portion of this box which is covered up by one of
        this box's siblings, or one of its ancestors' descendants. Puts
        to this value are ignored.
        </property>
    
    <property name="static" type="object" default="N/A">
        Reading from this property will return the parent scope used
        to execute the <tt><static/></tt> block of the template
        in which the currently-executing code resides.
        </property>
       
    <property name="thisbox" type="box" default="<tt> </tt>">
       Returns a reference to the box itself.
       If <tt>null</tt> is written to this property, and this box is
       the root box of a surface, the box will be detached and the
       surface destroyed. If this box has a parent, it will be
       detached from its parent.
       </property>
    
    <property name="indexof()" type="function" default="<tt> </tt>">
        This property is actually a function; invoking
        <tt>parent.indexof(child)</tt> will return the numerical index
        of <tt>child</tt> in <tt>parent</tt> if <tt>child</tt> is a
        child of <tt>parent</tt> (or <tt>parent</tt>'s redirect
        target), and <tt>-1</tt> otherwise. Writing to this property
        has no effect.
        </property>

    <property name="childadded" type=" " default="<tt> </tt>">

        These properties are meant to be trapped on <font
        color=red>FIXME defined later?</font>. Placing a trap on
        <tt>childadded/childremoved</tt> lets a box receive
        notification when a child is added/removed. In either
        situation, the child will be passed as an argument to the trap
        function <i>after</i> the addition or removal has been
        performed.

        Note that if the parent's redirect target is set to another
        box, these traps will only be invoked when children are
        manipulated by reading and writing to the parent.  Reads and
        writes directly to the redirect target will <i>not</i> trigger
        the traps.

        Note also that these traps are still triggered if a box's
        <tt>redirect</tt> target is <i>null</i>.  This is useful for
        boxes that need to accept children and then relocate them
        elsewhere.
        </property>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Notification Properties">
    
    The following properties are used to notify a box of changes specific
    to that particular box.
    
    <property name="Enter">
        The value <tt>true</tt> is written to this property when the mouse enters the box.
        </property>
    
    <property name="Leave">
        The value <tt>true</tt> is written to this property when the mouse leaves the box.
        </property>
    
    <property name="SizeChange">
        The value <tt>true</tt> is put to this property after the size
        of this box changes.
        </property>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Root Box Properties">
    
    The following special properties are only meaningful on the root box
    of a surface.
    
    <property name="Focused">
        The value <tt>true</tt> is put to this property on the root box
        when the surface gains the input focus, and <tt>false</tt> when
        the surface loses the input focus. Reading from this value will
        return <tt>true</tt> if the surface is focused and <tt>false</tt>
        if it is not. Putting <tt>true</tt> to this property will
        <i>not</i> cause the surface to "steal" the input focus from other
        windows.
        </property>
    
    <property name="Maximized">
        The value <tt>true</tt> is put to this property on the root box
        when the surface is maximized, and <tt>false</tt> when the surface
        is un-maximized. Reading from this value will return <tt>true</tt>
        if the surface is maximized and <tt>false</tt> if it is
        not. Putting <tt>true</tt> to this property will maximize the
        window, and putting <tt>false</tt> to this property will
        unmaximize the window.
        Note that not all platforms support maximization.
        </property>
    
    <property name="Minimized">
        The value <tt>true</tt> is put to this property on the root box
        when the surface is minimized, and <tt>false</tt> when the surface
        is unminimized. Reading from this value will return <tt>true</tt>
        if the surface is minimized and <tt>false</tt> if it is
        not. Putting <tt>true</tt> to this property will minimize the
        window, and putting <tt>false</tt> will unminimize it.
        </property>
    
    <property name="Close">
        When the user attempts to close a surface, the value
        <tt>true</tt> will be put to this property. Scripts may trap
        this property <font color=red>FIXME defined later?</font> to
        prevent the window from closing. Putting the value
        <tt>true</tt> to this property on a root box has the same
        effect as putting <tt>null</tt> to the <tt>thisbox</tt>
        property.
        </property>
    
    <property name="icon">
        The surface's icon. This is usually displayed on the titlebar of a
        window. The value should be the stream name of a PNG image. Note
        that not all platforms support this property.
        </property>
    
    <property name="titlebar">
        The surface's titlebar text. Note that not all platforms support
        this property. Only ASCII characters 0x20-0x7F are permitted.
        </property>
    
    </section>

  </section>

<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="Streams">
    
  <section title="Every object has a stream...">

    Every object has a <i>stream</i> associated with it.  A stream is a
    sequence of bytes that can be read or written to.
    
    By default an object has an empty stream (zero bytes).  However, some objects
    (returned from special methods on the <tt>ibex</tt> object) have
    streams yielding data read from an url, file, or a component of a zip
    archive.  In a future release, the stream associated with a box will
    be an .ibex template which, when applied, will fully reconstitute the
    box's state.
    
    </section>

  <section title="...but streams are not objects">
    
    Despite the ubiquity of streams, you cannot actually reference a
    stream, since it is not an object.  Instead, you simply reference the
    object it belongs to.  If you are familiar with Java, this is similar
    to how every Java object has a monitor associated with it, but you
    cannot directly manipulate the monitor (you can't pass around a
    reference to just the monitor).
    
    In the rest of the section we will sometimes refer to "getting
    properties from a stream" or "passing a stream to a function"; this is
    just shorthand for saying to perform those actions on the object the
    stream belongs to.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Creating Streams from URLs">
    
    You can create a stream from a URL by calling
    
    <pre>
        var r = ibex.stream.url("http://...");
    </pre>
    
    This will return an object whose stream draws data from the specified
    URL.  Streams are loaded lazily whenever possible.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Getting Substreams">

    Most stream objects let you access
    substreams using the usual JavaScript operators <tt>[]</tt> and
    <tt>.</tt>, as well as the <tt>for..in</tt> syntax.
    
    <pre>
      // r1 and r2 are equivalent but not equal (!=)
      var r1 = ibex.stream.url("http://www.ibex.org/foo/bar.html");
      var r2 = ibex.stream.url("http://www.ibex.org/foo")["bar.html"];
    </pre>
    
    </section>

  <section title="The Root Stream">

    The empty-string property on the <tt>ibex</tt> object is called the
    <i>root stream</i>.  You can access this object as <tt>ibex..</tt> or
    <tt>ibex[""]</tt>.  Additionally, any expression which starts with a
    dot is treated as property to be retrieved from the root stream.  The
    following three expressions are equivalent:
    
    <pre>
      ibex..foo
      ibex[""].foo
      .foo
    </pre>

    </section>

  <section title="Static Blocks">

    You can access variables within the static block of a template by
    appending a double period (<tt>..</tt>) and the variable name to the
    stream used to load that template:
    
    <pre>
      <!-- org/ibex/themes/monopoly/scrollbar.ibex -->
      <ibex>
          <static>
              foo = 12;
      ...
      // elsewhere
      ibex.log.print(org.ibex.themes.monopoly.scrollbar..foo);   // prints "12"
    </pre>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Formatting Streams">

    If you attempt to send a stream as part of an XML-RPC call, the
    stream will be read in its entirity, Base64-encoded, and transmitted
    as a <tt><base64/></tt> element.
    
    Ibex supports two special URL protocols.  The first is <tt>data:</tt>,
    which inteprets the rest of the URL as a Base64 encoded sequence of
    bytes to use as a source.  The other is <tt>utf8:</tt> which
    interpretets the rest of the string as a Unicode character sequence to
    be UTF-8 encoded as a string of bytes to use as a source.
    
    <pre>
      var r5 = ibex.stream.url("data:WFWE876WEh99sd76f");
      var r6 = ibex.stream.url("utf8:this is a test");
    </pre>

    You can read a UTF-8 encoded string from a stream like this:
    
    <pre>
      var myString = ibex.stream.fromUTF(ibex.stream.url("utf8:this is a test"));
    </pre>
    You can also parse XML from a stream using SAX like this:
    
    <pre>
      ibex.stream.xml.sax(ibex.stream.url("http://foo.com/foo.xml"),
                         { beginElement : function(tagname, attributeKeyValuePairs) { ... },
                           endElement   : function(tagname) { ... },
                           content      : function(contentString) { ... }
                           whitespace   : function(whitespaceString) { ... }
                         });
    </pre>
    
    </section>

  </section>

<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="The Ibex object">

    The <tt>ibex</tt> object is present in the top-level scope of every
    script.  It has the following properties:
    
  <section title="General">

    <table class="props">
    <tr><td><tt>ibex.box</tt></td>                      <td>reading from this property returns a new box</td></tr>
    <tr><td><tt>ibex.clone(o)</tt></td>                 <td>creates a clone of object <i>o</i></tr>
    <tr><td><tt>ibex.bless(s)</tt></td>                 <td>returns a blessed clone of stream <i>s</i></tr>
    </table>

    </section>

  <section title="ECMA Library Objects">

    <table class="props">
    <tr><td><tt>ibex.date</tt></td>                     <td>reading from this property returns a new date</td></tr>
    <tr><td><tt>ibex.math</tt></td>                     <td>this object contains the ECMA math functions</td></tr>
    <tr><td><tt>ibex.regexp(s)</tt></td>                <td>return a regexp object corresponding to string <i>s</i></td></tr>
    <tr><td><tt>ibex.string</tt></td>                   <td>this object contains the ECMA string manipulation functions</td></tr>
    </table>

    </section>

  <section title="Logging">

    <property name="ibex.log.debug(m, o)">
        log the debug message <i>m</i>, optionally dumping object
        <i>o</i>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.log.info(m, o)">
        log the informational message <i>m</i>, optionally dumping
        object <i>o</i>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.log.warn(m, o)">
        log the warning message <i>m</i>, optionally dumping object
        <i>o</i>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.log.error(m, o)">
        log the error message <i>m</i>, optionally dumping object
        <i>o</i>
        </property>

    </section>

  </section>
<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="User Interface">

    <property name="ibex.ui.browser(u)">
        opens a new browser window with URL <i>u</i>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.key.control">
        true if the control key is depressed
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.key.shift">
        true if the shift key is depressed
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.key.alt">
        true if the alt key is depressed
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.key.name.alt">
        the name of the "alt" key (usually either "alt", "meta", or
        "option")
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.clipboard">
        the contents of the clipboard; can be read and written to
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.maxdim">
        the maximum dimension of any UI element; usually
        2<sup>31</sup>, but may be smaller
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.screen.width">
        the width of the screen, in pixels
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.screen.height">
        the height of the screen, in pixels
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.mouse.button">
        either 0, 1, 2, or 3, indicating the mouse button currently
        being pressed
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.frame">
        when a box is written to this property, it becomes the root
        box of a new window
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.window">
        when a box is written to this property, it becomes the root
        box of a new frame
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.font.serif">
        an object whose stream is a a builtin serif font
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.font.sansserif">
        an object whose stream is a builtin sans-serif font
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.ui.font.monospace">
        an object whose stream is a a builtin fixed-width font
        </property>

  <section title="Networking">

    <property name="ibex.net.http">
        <font color=red><i>not yet implemented</font>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.net.rpc.xml(u)">
        return an XML-RPC call object with endpoint URL <i>u</i>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.net.rpc.soap(u,">
        return a SOAP call object with endpoint URL <i>u</i>,
        SoapAction <i>a</i>, and XML Namespace <i>n</i>
        </property>

    </section>

  <section title="Threads">

    <property name="ibex.thread">
        when a function is written to this property, a new thread is
        forked to call it
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.thread.yield()">
        yield the current thread
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.thread.sleep(n)">
        sleep for <i>n</i> milliseconds
        </property>

    </section>

  <section title="Streams">

    <property name="ibex.stream.url(u)">
         returns a new object whose stream is drawn from URL <i>u</i>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.stream.unzip(s)">
        unpacks a zip archive from <i>s</i>'s stream
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.stream.uncab(s)">
        unpacks a cab archive from <i>s</i>'s stream
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.stream.cache(s,k)">
        valign=top>wraps a disk-backed read cache keyed on <i>k</i>
        around <i>s</i>'s stream
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.stream.watch(s,f)">
        returns an object whose stream is drawn from <i>s</i>'s
        stream, but invokes <i>f(n,d)</i> as it is read from.
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.stream.parse.xml(s, h)">
        Use SAX to parse the XML document on stream <i>s</i> with
        handler <i>h</i>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.stream.parse.html(s, h)">
        Same as <tt>parse.xml()</tt>, but tries to fix broken HTML.
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.stream.parse.utf8(s)">
        </property>
        treat <i>s</i>'s stream as a string encoded as a UTF-8 byte stream and return the string</tr>

    <property name="ibex.stream.homedir">
        <tt>ibex.stream.tempdir</tt>
        </property>

    </section>

  <section title="Cryptography">

    <property name="ibex.crypto.rsa(k,s)">
        <i><font color=red>not implemented yet:</font></i> return a
        stream which rsa-decrypts stream <i>s</i> with key <i>k</i>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.crypto.rc4(k,s)">
        <i><font color=red>not implemented yet:</font></i> return a
        stream which rc4-decrypts stream <i>s</i> with key <i>k</i>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.crypto.md5(s)">
        <i><font color=red>not implemented yet:</font></i> immediately
        MD5-hash stream <i>s</i>
        </property>

    <property name="ibex.crypto.sha1(s)">
        <i><font color=red>not implemented yet:</font></i> immediately
        SHA1-hash stream <i>s</i>
        </property>

    </section>

  </section>
<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="Traps">

  <section title="Simple Traps">

    You can add a trap to a property by applying the <tt>++=</tt> operator
    to a function with one argument.  The trap will be invoked whenever
    that property is written to.
    
    <pre>
        <box>
            foo ++= function(z) {
               ibex.log.info("foo is " + z);
            }
        </box>
    </pre>

    If another script were to set the property <tt>"foo"</tt>
    on the box above to the value <tt>5</tt>, the function above would be
    invoked with the argument <tt>5</tt>. The function would then log
    the string <tt>"foo is 5"</tt>.
    
    Within a trap, the expression <tt>trapee</tt> can be used to
    get a reference to the box on which the trap was placed.
    
    The expression <tt>trapname</tt> returns the name of the
    trap executing the current function. This is useful when a function
    is applied to multiple traps. For example:
    
    <pre>
        <box>
            func ++= function(z) {
                ibex.log.info("called trap " + trapname);
            }
            foo ++= func;
            bar ++= func;
        </box>
    </pre>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Removing Traps">

    You can remove a trap by using the <tt>--=</tt> operator with the same
    function you added as a trap:
    
    <pre>
        <box>
            var myfunc = function(z) { /* ... */ }
            // add the trap
            func ++= myfunc;
            // ...
            // remove the trap
            func --= myfunc;
        </box>
    </pre>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Multiple Traps on the Same Property">

    When the property is <i>written</i> to, each of the trap functions placed
    on it will be invoked in the opposite order that they were placed on
    the box -- the most recently placed trap will execute first. This
    last-to-first execution of traps is called <i>cascading</i>. After the
    last trap is invoked, the value is stored on the box (remember, boxes
    are objects, so they can hold properties just like all other
    ECMAscript objects).
    
    </section>

  <section title="Manual Cascades">

    There are two additional tricks you can use when placing traps. The
    first is a <i>manual cascade</i>. If you want to cascade to lower
    traps in the middle of a function, or you want to cascade with a
    different value than the value passed to you (in effect "lying" to
    lower traps), you can use <tt>cascade</tt>. For example:
    
    <pre>
        <box color="black">
            color ++= function(c) {
                ibex.log.info("refusing to change colors!");
                cascade = "black";
            }
        </box>
    </pre>

    This effectively creates a box whose color cannot be changed, and
    which complains loudly if you try to do so.
    
    Do <i>not</i> try to do something like this:
    
    <pre>
        <box color="black">
            color ++= function(z) {
                color = "black";      // INFINITE LOOP! BAD!!!
            }
        </box>
    </pre>
    To prevent automatic cascading, return <tt>true</tt> from your function:
    
    <pre>
        <box color="black">
            color ++= function(z) {
                return true;          // the box's color will not change
            }
        </box>
    </pre>

    </section>

  <section title="Read Traps">

    The other trick is a <i>read-trap</i>. Read traps are just like normal
    traps, except that you  use a function that takes zero arguments instead of one. Read traps
    also do not automatically cascade.
    
    <pre>
        <box>
            doublewidth <tt>++=</tt> function() { return 2 * width; }
        </box>
    </pre>

    If another script attempts to read from the <tt>doublewidth</tt>
    property on this box, the value it gets will be twice the actual width
    of the box.  Note that
    the actual <tt>doublewidth</tt> property on the box never gets written
    to, since the trap does not cascade.
    
    You can manually cascade on read traps as well:
    
    <pre>
        <box>
            text <tt>++=</tt> function() { return "my text is " + cascade; }
        </box>
    </pre>

    Read traps are only rarely needed -- most of the time a write trap
    should be enough.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Prohibited Traps">

    To prevent confusing and hard-to-debug behaviors, scripts may not
    place traps on any of the properties described in the sections
    <link section="Box Layout Properties"/>, <link
    section="Child-Control Properties"/>, or <link section="Other Box
    Properties"/> except for <tt>childadded</tt>,
    <tt>childremoved</tt> and <tt>surface</tt>.  <font
    color=red>FIXME: remove?</font>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Exceptions and Traps ">

    If an uncaught exception is thrown from a trap, Ibex will log the
    exception, but will <i>not</i> propagate it to the code which
    triggered the trap. If the trap was a read trap, the value
    <tt>null</tt> will be returned.
    <font color=red>FIXME: is this right?</font>
    
    </section>

  <section title="Architectural Significance of Traps">

    Traps are the backbone of Ibex. Since almost all UI programming is
    event/demand driven, traps eliminate the need for separate
    member/getter/setter declarations, often cutting the amount of typing
    you have to do to a third of what it would normally be.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Cloning">

    <I>Cloning</i> is a companion technique for traps; together they can
    be used to simulate any sort of environment you might need.  When you
    call <tt>ibex.clone(o)</tt>, Ibex returns a new object (called the
    <i>clone</i>) which compares with equality (<tt>==</tt>) to the
    original object.  Furthermore, both objects are "equal" as keys in
    hashtables, so:
    
    <pre>
       var hash = {};
       var theclone = ibex.clone(o);
       hash[o] = 5;
       ibex.log.info(hash[theclone]);    // prints "5"
    </pre>

    Any writes to properties on the clone will actually write to
    properties on the original object, and reads from properties on the
    clone will read properties on the original object.  In fact, the only
    thing that can be used to distinguish the original from the clone is
    traps -- a trap placed on the clone is <i>not</i> placed on the
    original object as well.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Ibex self-emulation">

    When the core first starts up, it clones the <tt>ibex</tt> object,
    creates a stream for the initial .ibex, and then places a trap on the
    cloned <tt>ibex</tt> object so that its empty-string property returns
    the .ibex stream.  The cloned Ibex object is then passed as the third
    (optional) argument to <tt>ibex.apply()</tt>, making it the default
    <tt>ibex</tt> object for the scripts that are executed as part of the
    template instantiation.
    
    <pre>
       var new_ibex = ibex.clone(ibex);
       var stream = ibex.bless(ibex.stream.url("http://..."));
       new_ibex[""] ++= function() { return stream; }
       ibex.apply(ibex.box, new_ibex..main, new_ibex);
    </pre>

    Note that we called <tt>ibex.bless()</tt> on the stream before tacking
    it on to the new Ibex object.  The bless function returns a clone of
    the object passed to it, with a few traps which are explained below.
    Additionally, any sub-streams retrieved by accessing properties of the
    blessed stream will also automatically be blessed (blessed streams are
    <i>monadic</i>).
    
    Blessing a stream serves three purposes:
    
    <list type="unordered">
        
        Blessed clones always return the appropriate static block when
        their empty property is accessed; this ensures that references
        to the static blocks of other templates work properly.
        
        Blessed substreams can return their parent stream by accessing
        a hidden property which is reserved for internal use by Ibex.
        This ensures that Ibex can automatically add filename
        extensions where needed, according to the following rules:

            If the stream is a template to be applied, the string
            <tt>".ibex"</tt> is appended.
        
            If the stream is an image, the string <tt>".png"</tt> is
            appended.  If no stream is found, <tt>".jpeg"</tt> and
            <tt>".gif"</tt> are tried, in that order.
        
            If the stream is an font, the string <tt>".ttf"</tt> is
            appended.
        
        Every call to <tt>ibex.bless()</tt> returns a different object
        (which happens to be a clone of the object passed to it) with
        a completely separate set of static blocks.

    </list>

    Ibex can self-emulate by using <tt>ibex.clone()</tt> on the Ibex object;
    this technique is very similar to the use of ClassLoaders in
    Java. This is useful for a number of applications, including
    debuggers, IDEs, sandboxing untrusted code, remote-control, and
    others.  For example:
    
    <pre>
       var newLoadFunction = function(url) { /* ... */ };
       var new_ibex = ibex.clone(ibex);
       new_ibex.load ++= function() { return newLoadFunction; }
       ibex.apply(ibex.box, .main, new_ibex);
    </pre>

    </section>

  </section>
<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="Contexts and Threading">

  <section title="Contexts">

    From the perspective of an application writer, Ibex is strictly
    single-threaded.  Ibex is always in exactly one of the following three
    <i>contexts</i>:
    
    <list type="unordered">

        <b>Rendering Context</b> (redrawing the screen)
        
        <b>Event Context</b> (executing javascript traps triggered by an event)
        
        <b>Thread Context</b> (executing a background thread spawned with <tt>ibex.thread</tt>)

    </list>
    
    There are two important restrictions on what can be done in particular contexts:
    
    <list type="unordered">

        The <tt>box.mouse</tt> property and its subproperties
        (<tt>x</tt>, <tt>y</tt>, and <tt>inside</tt>) can only be read
        from within the Event Context, or in a thread context
        <i>after</i> a the <tt>box.mouse</tt> property on this box or
        an ancestor box has been written to.
        
        Blocking operations (anything that accesses the network or
        disk) can only be performed in the Thread Context.

    </list>

    </section>

  <section title="Background Threads">

    Ibex offers easy access to threads. Spawning a background thread is as
    simple as writing a function to the <tt>ibex.thread</tt> property:
    
    <pre>
        ibex.thread = function() {
            ibex.log.info("this is happening in a background thread!");
        }
    </pre>

    The argument set passed to the function is currently undefined and is
    reserved for use in future versions of Ibex. Scripts should not
    depend on the number or content of these arguments.
    
    Ibex is <i>cooperatively multitasked</i>, so threads must not process
    for too long.  This was a deliberate choice; cooperatively
    multitasked environments do not require complex locking primitives
    like mutexes and semaphores which are difficult for novices to
    understand.  The disadvantage of cooperative multitasking is that one
    thread can hog the CPU.  This is unlikely to happen in Ibex for two reasons:
    first, all blocking I/O operations <i>automatically</i> yield the CPU,
    so the overall user interface never becomes unresponsive because it is
    waiting for a disk or network transfer.  Second, since Ibex is strictly
    a user interface platform, Ibex scripts are unlikely to perform highly
    compute-intensive operations that keep the CPU busy for more than a
    few milliseconds.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Events">

    Every execution of the Event Context begins with an event, which
    consists of a key/value pair, and a mouse position, which consists of
    an x and y coordinate.  The possible keys are <tt>_Press[1-3]</tt>,
    <tt>_Release[1-3]</tt>, <tt>_Click[1-3]</tt>, <tt>_DoubleClick[1-3]</tt>,
    <tt>_Move</tt>, <tt>_KeyPressed</tt>, and <tt>_KeyReleased</tt>.
    
    Here are two example events:
    
    An event is triggered by writing the key to the value on a box.  This
    triggers any trap handlers which may be present.  Once these handlers
    have executed, Ibex figures out which child of the current box contains
    the mouse (taking into account that some boxes may cover up others)
    and writes the key and value to that box.  If none of the box's
    children contain the mouse position, Ibex removes the leading
    underscore from the key name and writes the value to
    <i>that</i> property.  Once all the traps on that property have
    executed, the value is written to the box's parent.
    
    Intuitively, Ibex delivers the underscored event to every box from the
    root to the target, and then delivers the non-underscored event to
    that same set of boxes in reverse order.  So the event travels down
    the tree to the target, and then back up to the root.  The following
    example prints out "first second third fourth" in that order.
    
    <pre>
          <box>
              _Press1 ++= function(b) { ibex.log.info("first"); }
               Press1 ++= function(b) { ibex.log.info("fourth"); }
              <box>
                _Press1 ++= function(b) { ibex.log.info("second"); }
                 Press1 ++= function(b) { ibex.log.info("third"); }
              </box>
          </box>
    </pre>

    In general, you should use the <i>non-underscore</i> names to respond
    to user input and use the underscored names when you want to override
    child boxes' behavior or route events to particular boxes (for
    example, when implementing a focus protocol).  This is why the
    underscored elements are delivered to parents before children (so
    parents can override their childrens' behavior), but non-underscored
    events are delivered to children before parents (since, visually, a
    mouse click is usually "intended" for the leaf box underneath the
    cursor).
    
    </section>

  <section title="Stopping the Process">

    At any point in this sequence, a trap handler can choose not to
    cascade (by returning <tt>true</tt> from the trap handler function).
    This will immediately cease the propagation of the event.  This is how
    you would indicate that an event has been "handled".
    
    </section>

  <section title="Re-routing events">

    At any point in the Event Context, you can write to the <tt>mouse</tt>
    property on any box.  The value written should be an object with two
    properties, <tt>x</tt> and <tt>y</tt>.  For example:
    
    <pre>
        _Press1 ++= function(p) {
            mouse = { x: 32, y: 77 };
        }
    </pre>

    The coordinates specified are relative to the box whose <tt>mouse</tt>
    property is being written to.  There is no need to supply the
    <tt>inside</tt> property; it is computed automatically.  Writing to
    the <tt>mouse</tt> property causes Ibex to recompute the eventual
    target box, and also alter the values returned by <tt>mouse.x</tt>,
    <tt>mouse.y</tt>, and <tt>mouse.inside</tt> for any <i>descendants</i>
    of the current box.  Writing to the <tt>mouse</tt> property also
    automatically prevents the event from returning to the box's parents
    -- it is equivalent to not cascading on the non-underscored event.
    This ensures that child boxes cannot trick their parent boxes into
    thinking that the mouse has moved.
    
    If you want the event to "skip over" the boxes between the trapee
    and the target, or if you want to re-route an event to a box which
    is not a descendant of the current box, simply write the value to
    the proper key on the target box.
    
    <pre>
         <box>
             _KeyPressed = function(k) { ibex.log.info("first"); }
              KeyPressed = function(k) { ibex.log.info("sixth"); }
             $recipient.target = $target;
             <box id="recipient">
                 _KeyPressed = function(k) {
                     ibex.log.info("second");
                     thisbox.target.KeyPressed = k;
                     // inhibit cascade to keep the event from going to $excluded
                     return true;
                 }
                  KeyPressed = function(k) { ibex.log.info("fifth"); }
                 <box id="excluded">
                     _KeyPressed = function(k) { ibex.log.info("this never happens"); }
                 </box>
             </box>
             <box id="target"> 
                 _KeyPressed = function(k) { ibex.log.info("third"); }
                  KeyPressed = function(k) { ibex.log.info("fourth"); }
             </box>
         </box>
    </pre>

    </section>

  <section title="Synthesizing Your Own Events">

    You can create "fake events" by simply writing to the <tt>mouse</tt>
    property and then writing a value to one of the underscored properties
    on a box.  This will have exactly the same effect as if the use had
    actually pressed a key, clicked a button, or moved the mouse -- they
    are indistinguishable.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Enter and Leave">

    Ibex will trigger the <tt>Enter</tt> and <tt>Leave</tt> properties as
    it walks down the tree, based on the position of the mouse (or the
    faked position if the <tt>mouse</tt> property has been written to).
    However, <tt>Enter</tt> and <tt>Leave</tt> are not events since they
    do not implicitly cascade up or down the tree.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Detailed Description of Events">
    
    <property name="Press1 / Press2 / Press3">
        Indicates that the use has pressed a mouse button.  On
        platforms with three mouse buttons, the <i>middle</i> button
        is button 3 -- this ensures that applications written to only
        use two buttons (1 and 2) will work intuitively on three button
        platforms.
        </property>
    
    <property name="Release1 / Release2 / Release3">
        Indicates that the use has released a mouse button.
        </property>
    
    <property name="Click1 / Click2 / Click3">
        Indicates that the user has pressed and released the
        mouse button without moving the mouse much (exactly how
        much is platform-dependent).
        </property>
    
    <property name="DoubleClick1 / DoubleClick2 / DoubleClick3">
        Indicates that the user has clicked the 
        mouse button twice within a short period of time (exactly how long is platform-dependent).
        </property>
    
    <property name="Move">
        Indicates that the mouse has moved while within this box, or that
        the mouse while outside this box <i>if a button was pressed while within this box and has not yet been released</i>
        </property>
    
    <property name="KeyPressed KeyReleased">
        A string is written to this property when a key is pressed or
        released If the key was any other key, a multi-character
        string describing the key will be put. For simplicity, we use
        the VK_ constants in the <link
        url="http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/docs/api/java.awt.event.KeyEvent.html#VK_0"
        text=" Java 1.1 API java.awt.event.KeyEvent class"/>. When a
        key is pressed or released, the string put will be the portion
        of its VK_ constant after the underscore, all in lower case.
        If the shift key was depressed immediately before the event
        took place, then the string will be capitalized. Special
        keynames are also capitalized; shift+home is reported as
        "<tt>HOME</tt>". Symbols are capitalized as they appear on the
        keyboard; for example, on an American QWERTY keyboard, shift+2
        is reported as "<tt>@</tt>".  If the alt, meta, or command key
        was depressed immediately before this key was pressed, then
        the string will be prefixed with the string "<tt>A-</tt>". If
        the control key was depressed while this key was pressed, then
        the string will be prefixed with the string "<tt>C-</tt>". If
        both alt and control are depressed, the string is prefixed
        with "<tt>C-A-</tt>".  Ibex does not distinguish between a key
        press resulting from the user physically pushing down a key,
        and a 'key press' resulting from the keyboard's typematic
        repeat. In the rare case that an application needs to
        distinguish between these two events, it should watch for
        KeyReleased messages and maintain an internal key-state
        vector.
        </property>

    </section>

  </section>
<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="Networking">
    
  <section title="XML-RPC">
    
    XML-RPC objects can be created by calling <tt>ibex.net.rpc.xml(<<i>XML-RPC
    URL</i>>)</tt>, and then invoking methods on that object. For example,
    
    <pre>
        Press1 += function(v) {
            ibex.thread = function() {
                color = ibex.net.rpc.xml("http://xmlrpc.ibex.org/RPC2/").color.getTodaysColor("Friday");
            }
        }
    </pre>
    
    When the user clicks the first mouse button on this box, it will
    contact the server <tt>xmlrpc.ibex.org</tt>, route to the
    <tt>/RPC2/</tt> handler and invoke the <tt>getTodaysColor()</tt>
    method on the <tt>color</tt> object with a single string argument
    <tt>"Friday"</tt>. The return value will be used to change the color
    of the box the user clicked on.
    
    Note that in this example we spawned a background thread to handle the
    request -- the <tt>Press1</tt> event is delivered in the foreground
    thread, and XML-RPC methods may only be invoked in background
    threads. This is to prevent the UI from "locking up" if the server
    takes a long time to reply.
    
    If the XML-RPC method faults, an object will be thrown with two
    properties: <tt>faultCode</tt> and <tt>faultString</tt>, as defined in
    the <link url="http://www.xmlrpc.org/spec" text="XML-RPC specification"/>. If
    Ibex encounters a network, transport, or session-layer error, it will
    throw a <tt>String</tt> object describing the error in a
    human-readable format. Scripts should not rely on the contents of
    this string having any special structure or significance.
    
    If an object with an associated non-empty stream is passed as an
    argument to an XML-RPC method, it will be sent as a <base64>
    element. If a <base64> element is found in the XML-RPC reply, it
    will be returned as an object with a stream drawn from that byte sequence.
    
    Each object returned by <tt>ibex.net.rpc.xml()</tt> represents a
    single HTTP connection.  The connection will be held open until
    the object is garbage collected or the server closes the
    connection.  If a second call is issued on the object before the
    first one returns (usually from a seperate thread), the two calls
    will be <link
    url="http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec8.html#sec8.1.2.2"
    text="pipelined"/>.  This can dramatically improve performance.
    
    Ibex supports HTTP Basic and Digest authentication. To use
    authentication, pass <tt>ibex.net.rpc.xml()</tt> a URL in the form
    <tt>http[s]://user:password@hostname/</tt>.  Ibex will use Digest
    authentication if the server supports it; otherwise it will use
    Basic authentication.  Please be aware that many XML-RPC server
    implementations contain a <link
    url="http://www.ibex.org/faq.html#auth" text="broken implementation
    of Basic authentication"/>.
    
    </section>

  <section title="SOAP">
    
    SOAP methods are invoked the same way as XML-RPC methods, but with three differences:
    
    <list type="ordered">

        <tt>ibex.net.rpc.soap()</tt> is used instead of
        <tt>ibex.net.rpc.xml()</tt>
        
        Instead of specifying just the URL of the service itself, you
        must specify the URL, the SOAPAction argument, and the
        namespace to use.
        
        The actual method invocation takes only one argument, which
        must be an object. This is necessary since SOAP arguments are
        specified by name, rather than ordering.

    </list>
    
    SOAP faults are handled the same way as XML-RPC faults except that the
    capitalization of the <tt>faultstring</tt> and <tt>faultcode</tt>
    members is all lower-case, to match the SOAP spec. Here is a
    SOAP example:
    
    <pre>
        Press1 ++= function(v) {
            ibex.thread = function() {
                color = ibex.net.rpc.soap("http://soap.ibex.org/SOAP",   // endpoint
                                         "GETTODAYSCOLOR",             // SOAPAction header
                                         "http://ibex.org/namespace"    // namespace for SOAP-ENV
                                    ).color.getTodaysColor( {
                                        whichday : Friday
                                    } );
            }
        }
    </pre>

    As you can see, SOAP is much more verbose, yet does not offer
    substantially improved functionality. We recommend that XML-RPC be
    used whenever possible, and that SOAP be reserved for legacy
    applications.
    
    The current Ibex SOAP stack does not support 'document style' or
    multi-ref (<tt>href</tt>) data structures.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Security">

    Applications downloaded from the network (as opposed to those loaded
    from the filesystem) may only make certain kinds of connections to
    certain hosts.  See Appendix A for a detailed description of the
    security policy.
    
    </section>

  </section>
<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="Error Handling">

    If the Ibex Core encounters an error while servicing a function call
    originating in JavaScript, the core will throw a string consisting of
    an error code followed by a colon, a space, and a descriptive message.
    For example:
    
    <pre>
       "ibex.net.dns.unknownhostexception: unable to resolve host foo.com"
    </pre>

    The code should be used to determine how the program should respond to
    an error.  The codes are organized in a hierarchy, so the
    string.startsWith() method can be used to determine if an error lies
    within a particular subhierarchy.  The descriptive message portion of
    the string may be shown to the user.
    
    <property name="ibex.assertion.failed">
        an assertion failed
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.io">
        General I/O exceptions
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.io.encoding">
        Error translating between character encodings.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.io.zip">
        Attempted to access a corrupt zip archive.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.io.eof">
        End of file encountered unexpectedly
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.security.prohibitedHost">
        A piece of untrusted Ibex code attempted to contact a
        restricted host.  See Appendix A for details.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.dns.temporaryFailure">
        An attempt to resolve a hostname failed but it is not known
        for certain that the hostname is invalid.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.dns.unknownHost">
        An attempt to resolve a hostname failed because the hostname
        was invalid.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.socket.closed">
        A socket was closed unexpectedly.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.socket.connectionFailed">
        A connection could not be made to the remote host.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.url.malformed">
        Tried to parse a malformed URL.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.ssl">
        General SSL protocol errors.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.ssl.untrustedCertificate">
        The server's certificate was not signed by a CA trusted by Ibex.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.http.">
        Thrown when an HTTP error code is returned during an
            operation.  The three characters <tt><i>xyz</i></tt> will be
            the three-digit HTTP status code.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.xmlrpc.null">
        The caller attempted to transmit the <tt>null</tt> value via XML-RPC.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.xmlrpc.circular">
        The caller attempted to transmit a circular data structure via XML-RPC.
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.net.xmlrpc.specialObject">
        The caller attempted to transmit a "special" object via
        XML-RPC (for example, a Box or the Ibex object).
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.null.put">
        A JavaScript attempted to put to a property on the <tt>null</tt> value
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.null.get">
        A JavaScript attempted to get from a property on the <tt>null</tt> value
        </property>
    <property name="ibex.null.call">
        A JavaScript attempted to call the <tt>null</tt> value
        </property>
    </table>
    
    If an exception is thrown inside a trap, the exception will propagate
    to the script that triggered the trap.
    
    If an uncaught exception is thrown while applying a template, or the
    requested template could not be found, an error will be logged and the
    box to which the template was being applied will be made invisible
    (<tt>visible = false</tt>).  This ensures that half-applied widgets are
    never shown to the user.
    
  </section>

<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="A: Security Architecture and Considerations">
    
    Due to the expense and hassle imposed by the commercial PKI code
    signing architecture, and the fact that it <link
    url="http://www.counterpane.com/pki-risks-ft.txt" text="doesn't
    really provide any security anyways"/>, Ibex user interfaces are
    distributed as unsigned, untrusted code. As such, they are handled
    very carefully by the Ibex Core, and assumed to be potentially
    malicious.
    
    Ibex's security architecture is divided into defenses against four
    major classes of attacks:
    
  <section title="Malicious UI attempts to acquire or alter data on the client">
    
    Ibex user interfaces are run in an extremely restrictive sandbox. The
    environment does not provide primitives for accessing any data outside
    the Ibex core except via XML-RPC and SOAP calls. There are no
    facilities to allow Ibex user interfaces to access the client's
    operating system or to interact with other applications on the same
    host (unless they provide a public XML-RPC or SOAP interface).
    An Ibex script may only access a file on the user's hard disk if the
    user explicitly chooses that file from an "open file" or "save file"
    dialog. There is one exception to this rule: if all templates
    currently loaded in the Ibex core originated from the local
    filesystem, those templates can load additional .ibexs from the local
    filesystem.
    
    The Ibex Core is written in Java, so it is not possible for
    scripts to perform buffer overflow attacks against the core
    itself.
    
    Ibex applications may only read from the clipboard when the user
    middle-clicks (X11 paste), presses control-V (Windows paste), or
    presses alt-V (Macintosh paste; the command key is mapped to Ibex
    "alt"). This ensures that Ibex applications are only granted access to
    data that other applications have placed on the clipboard when the user
    specifically indicates that that information should be made available
    to the Ibex application.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Malicious UI attempts to use client to circumvent firewalls">
    
    Ibex user interfaces may only make XML-RPC or SOAP calls and load .ibex
    archives via HTTP; they cannot execute arbitrary HTTP GET's or open
    regular TCP sockets.
    
    Ibex will not allow a script to connect to a non-public IP address
    (10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, or 192.168.0.0/16, as specified in <link
    url="http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/rfc/rfc1918.html" text="RFC
    1918"/>). There is one exception -- if all templates currently loaded
    in the core originated from the same IP address, those scripts may
    make calls to that IP address regardless of whether or not it is
    firewalled.  If Ibex does not have access to a DNS resolver (because it
    is using a proxy which performs DNS lookups), Ibex will provide the
    proxy with the appropriate <link
    url="http://www.ibex.org/x-requestorigin.html"
    text=""/>X-RequestOrigin</tt></a> header that the proxy needs in order
    to maintain security.
    
    The only remaining possible attack is against a XML-RPC or SOAP
    service running on a firewalled host with a public address. Assigning
    such machines public IP addresses is a poor network security policy,
    and doing so squanders scarce public IPv4 addresses. As such, the onus
    is on the administrators of such machines to explicitly block access
    to clients reporting a <tt>User-Agent:</tt> header beginning with the
    three characters "<tt>Ibex</tt>".
    
    </section>

  <section title="Malicious UI attempts to trick user into divulging secret information">
    
    All top-level windows created by Ibex are <i>scarred</i> -- a stripe
    and a lock is drawn across the corner of the window. There is no way
    for a user interface to remove this scar. Ibex user interfaces may not
    create windows smaller than the size of the scar.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Malicious network attempts to snoop or man-in-the-middle transactions">
    
    Ibex user interfaces may transmit network data using HTTPS (SSL 3.0)
    for encryption. Ibex will attempt 128-bit encryption, but will
    negotiate down to 40-bit if the server does not support strong
    crypto. Ibex's SSL implementation is currently provided by <link
    url="http://www.ibex.org/tinyssl" text="TinySSL"/> and <link
    url="http://www.bouncycastle.org" text="The Legion of the Bouncy
    Castle."/>
    
    All HTTPS connections must be authenticated by the server using a
    certificate whose name matches the domain name of the HTTPS URL. The
    certificate must be signed by a trusted root CA. Ibex trusts the same
    93 root CAs whose certificates are included as "trusted" in Microsoft
    Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2. This provides a minimal level of protection
    against man-in-the-middle attacks; you should not trust this
    connection with any data you would not normally trust an SSL-enabled
    web browser with.
    
    </section>

  </section>

<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="B: ECMAscript compliance">
    
    Ibex's scripts are written in a modified subset of ECMA-262, revision 3
    (aka JavaScript 1.5). The interpreter strays from the spec in a few
    ways.
    
  <section title="Omissions">
    
    The following ECMA features are not supported:
    
    <list type="unordered">

        The <tt>undefined</tt> value, <tt>===</tt>, and <tt>!==</tt>
        
        The <tt>new</tt> keyword (and ECMAScript object inheritance)
        <tt>eval</tt>
        
        <tt>getter</tt> and <tt>setter</tt>
        
        The ECMA <tt>this</tt> keyword.
        
        The <tt>String</tt>, <tt>Number</tt>, and <tt>Boolean</tt>
        classes.  Note that <tt>string</tt>, <tt>number</tt>, and
        <tt>boolean</tt> values are supported, however.
        
        You may not <tt>throw</tt> the <tt>null</tt> value.

    </list>
    
    Additionally, you must declare all root-scope variables (with
    <tt>var</tt>) before using them; failure to do so will result in an
    exception.  Box properties are pre-defined in the scope that scripts
    are executed in.
    
    </section>

  <section title="Extensions">
    
    <list type="unordered">
    
        The token <tt>..</tt> is equivalent to <tt>[""]</tt>.
    
        Trapping
    
        Cloning
    
        Extended <tt>catch</tt> syntax.  The following code:
        <pre>
            } catch(e propname "foo.bar.baz") {
               // ...
            }
        </pre>
        Is equivalent to:
        <pre>
        } catch(e) {
           if (e.propname != null &amp;&amp; e.propname >= "foo.bar.baz" &amp;&amp; e.propname < "foo.bar.baz/") {
               // ...
           }
        }
        </pre>
        Multiple extended-catch blocks can appear at the end of a single try
        block.  However, at most one non-extended catch block may appear, and
        if it does appear, it must be the last one.
    
        Since Ibex ECMAscripts are wrapped in XML, the lexical token
        "<tt>lt</tt>" is be interpreted as <tt><</tt>, the lexical
        token "<tt>gt</tt>" is be interpreted as <tt>></tt>, and the
        token "<tt>and</tt>" is interpreted as <tt>&amp;&amp;</tt>.
        Thus these tokens cannot be used as variable names.
    
        The identifier <tt>static</tt> is a reserved word in
        ECMAScript, but not in Ibex.
    
        Ibex defines an additional reserved word, "<tt>assert</tt>",
        which will evaluate the expression which follows it, throwing
        a <tt>ibex.assertion.failed</tt> exception if the expression
        evaluates to <tt>false</tt>.
    
        To ensure that Ibex files appear the same in all text editors, tab
        characters are not allowed in Ibex files.

    </list>
    
    Some useful tutorials include:
    
    <list type="unordered">
        
        Netscape's <link
        url="http://developer.netscape.com/docs/manuals/communicator/jsref/index.htm"
        text=" JavaScript 1.2 Reference"/>. Although this document is
        out of date, it is arguably the best guide available for free
        on the Internet. The changes from JavaScript 1.2 (aka ECMA-262
        r1) to 1.5 were minimal, and many of them were <link
        url="ecmascriptcompliance" text="omitted"/> from Ibex.
        
        O'Reilly's <link
        url="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=0596000480"
        text=" JavaScript: The Definitive Guide"/>, by David Flanagan
        and Paula Ferguson. The latest edition of this book covers
        JavaScript 1.5 (ECMA-262 r3).
        
        The official <link
        url="http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/STAND/ECMA-262.HTM"
        text="ECMA-262"/> specification. This is an extremely
        technical document.

    </list>
    
    </section>

  </section>

<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
<section title="C: Logging and Command Line Invocation">
    
    Very early in the loading process, Ibex begins logging messages about
    what it is doing.  Where this output is logged to differs by platform;
    currently it goes to standard output when running inside a JVM, and to
    <tt>$TMPDIR\ibex-log.txt</tt> on Win32 (where <tt>$TMPDIR</tt> is the
    value returned by <tt>GetTempPath()</tt>). The logs contain a lot of
    valuable debugging information and performance hints; if you are
    having trouble developing an Ibex application, be sure to check the
    logs.
    
    If Ibex encounters a serious problem before it starts logging
    information, or if it is unable to open the log file, it will abort
    immediately with a critical abort, which will be displayed on the
    console for POSIX-native cores and in a dialog box for JVM-based and
    Win32-native cores.
    
    You can invoke Ibex directly from the command line during
    development. When using a JVM, the invocation format is:
    
    <pre>
      java -jar <i>path-to-ibex-jar</i> [-sv] <i>source-location</i> [<i>initial-template</i>]
    </pre>
    
    Where <tt><i>path-to-ibex-jar</i></tt> is the path to <tt>ibex.jar</tt>,
    which can be downloaded <link url="http://www.ibex.org/dist/ibex.jar" text="here"/>.
    
    On Win32, the invocation format is:
    
    <pre>
      ibex.exe [-v] <i>source-location</i> [<i>initial-template</i>]
    </pre>
    
    The file <tt>ibex.exe</tt> is placed in Windows' ActiveX cache
    directory the first time Ibex is used on the machine. The ActiveX
    cache location depends on what version of Windows you are using;
    on newer versions of Windows it is <tt>C:\WINDOWS\DOWNLOADED
    PROGRAM FILES\</tt>. You can also extract <tt>ibex.exe</tt> from
    <tt>ibex.cab</tt>, which is available <link
    url="http://www.ibex.org/dist/ibex.cab" text="here"/>.
    
    The <tt><i>source-location</i></tt> parameter can be either the path
    to an .ibex archive, the http url of an .ibex archive, or the path to a
    directory comprising an unpacked .ibex archive.
    
    The <tt><i>initial-template</i></tt> parameter is the stream name of
    a template to be used as the initial template. If ommitted, it
    defaults to <tt>main</tt>.
    
    The <tt>-v</tt> option causes Ibex to enable verbose logging; this will
    cause it to log <i>lots</i> of information to the log file. This
    option will also substantially decrease Ibex's performance.
    
  </section>

<!-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
    <!--
<section title="E: Grammars">

    <font color=red><i>Grammar support is experimental in this release
    and may not work properly.  It may change in incompatible ways or
    disappear completely from future releases</i></font>
    
    Grammars are defined with a statement in the following form:
    
    <pre>
       a ::= b { c }
    </pre>
    A grammar is really just another function; once defined you can't tell
    it apart from an ordinary function.  A grammar takes one argument,
    which can be a string or stream.  The argument is parsed and the
    result of executing the code block 'c' is returned.
    
    The property 'a' is read; if the value is a grammar, a new production
    rule (ie a new alternative, as with '<tt>|</tt>') is added to that grammar
    (this is a destructive update).  This allows you to add productions to
    pre-existing grammars (for example, adding a new type of expression to
    a programming language by extending the 'expr' grammar).  If the old
    value is not a grammar, the value is discarded and a new grammar
    object is created.
    
    The value 'b' is a pattern, which may consist of seven simple
    primitives:
    
    <list type="unordered">
        string literals
         
        grouping parens <tt>()</tt>
         
        combinators:   <tt> | + * ?</tt>
         
        references to other grammars
    </list>

    The value 'c' and the braces surrounding it are an *optional* code
    block, in which the following identifiers are bound:
    
    <list type="unordered">
         
       The identifier 'whole' is bound to the string matched by the
       entire expression.  If the code block is omitted it behaves
       as if it were <tt>"{ return whole; }"</tt>.
         
       For every reference to another grammar which was matched in the
       pattern, the *name used to reference that other grammar* will
       be bound to the value returned by its code block.  Here's an
       example of this important distinction:
        
       <pre>
       var foo ::= 'a' | 'b';
       var bar ::= foo;
       var baz ::= 'c' | bar    {  /* foo is not defined here, but bar is */ };
       </pre>
        
       On the last line, the identifier 'bar' serves two purposes: it
       pulls in the definition of the pattern *and* acts as a binder
       within the scope of the braces.
        
       If a reference is matched multiple times (either because it
       appears multiple times in the pattern or because the * or +
       operator was applied to it) then its name will be bound to an
       array containing the matches.

    </list>

    Here is the metacircular definition of the grammar facility:
    
    <pre>
         grammar ::= identifier '::=' pattern (';' | '{' code '}' ';'?)
      identifier ::= ('a'..'z' | 'A'..'Z' | '_' | '$') (identifier | '0'..'9')*
            char ::= '\0x0000'..'\0xffff'
         literal ::= '\'' char+ '\''
                   | '\'' char '\'' '..' '\'' char '\''
         pattern ::= identifier
                   | literal
                   | '(' pattern ')'
                   | pattern '+'
                   | pattern '?'
                   | pattern '*'
                   | pattern pattern
                   | pattern '|' pattern
    </pre>
    -->
    
<i>
Copyright (C) 2004 Adam Megacz, verbatim redistribution permitted.
Ibex is a trademark of Adam Megacz
</i>
    
</ibex-doc>