Wishing to help in programming

[James Alan Brown]

Dear All,

I would like first of all to express my warmest thanks to you all for an excellent Linux word processor. For Linux Abiword�s biggest advantage over all others is its speed of loading up (first run; note how slow Star office takes to open in Linux)!

Being an old C++ programmer I would very much like to give as much free time as possible to helping developing new sections to AbiSuite.  I am interested in the layout and schemes as my expertise is in customizing PC software for small business use.

I would like if I may to attach a picture of the changes/theme  of my copy of Abiword running on SuSE Linux as I am you�re your be impressed.  I have already customized my set of icons and adjusted the layout space on the menu bars ready for new sections. Please let me know if attaching a jpeg file via an email is ok or please advise me of a link that I can up-load it?

I wish to work on the menu/icon bars and in particular in adding new short-cut icons.
I would like to start with creating a check spelling icon but need to understand how your passing the parameters/program processes/how the label is read and its sequence of events. Can someone just supply a few short notes to help me get the process clear in my mind? At the moment its quite different to how I would have gone about it, but I am sure it�s a much better way of doing things.

I think once I can understand that part the rest for me will be quite easy. 

Regards,

James