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8.1 About the AES

The AES (Application Environment Services) is that part of GEM that represents the direct (graphical) interface to the user. The AES offers a set of calls for applications to handle conveniently various concepts such as screen windows, menu bars, dropdown or pop-up menus, dialog boxes etc. The following utility libraries serve for this purpose:

Application library (appl_...)
File-selector library (fsel_...)
Print dialogs (pdlg_...)
Editable object functions (edit_...)
Event library (evnt_...)
Window-dialogs (wdlg_...)
Window library (wind_...)
Extended file-selectors (fslx_...)
Forms (form_...)
• Geneva functions
Graphics library (graf_...)
List boxes (lbox_...)
MagiC functions (sys_....)
Menus (menu_...)
Objects (objc_...)
Process library (proc_...)
Property library (prop_...)
Resource (rsrc_...)
Shell communication (shel_...)
X-graphics function (xgrf_...)
X-shell function (xshl_...)
Font selection (fnts_...)
Clipboard (scrp_...)

The origins of the AES reach back to the year 1984, developed by Digital Research originally for MS-DOS machines, and later ported to the Apple Lisa (under CP/M 68k). Subsequently this version was ported to the Atari-ST (under GEMDOS).

In version 4.0 the AES was revised extensively, and now offers many new and extended routines. With the function appl_getinfo one can check easily whether (and which) new options are available.

See also: AES fundamentals   Bindings of the AES   About the VDI


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