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+Users Guide to FlightGear panel configuration
+First Draft
+Author: John Check <j4strngs@rockfish.net>  
+
+This document is an attempt to describe the configuration via
+XML of FlightGear flight simulator's aircraft panel display.
+The information was culled from the fgfs-devel@flightgear.org
+mailing list. I'd like to say thanks to all the developers who 
+make FGFS happen and forgive me for any errors with regards to 
+who did what. I'd like to reguest that anybody who should be
+mentioned give me a heads up so I can credit them properly.
+Corrections and additions are encouraged.
+
+History:
+Older versions of FGFS had a hardcoded display of instruments.
+This was a less than ideal state of affairs due to FGFS ability
+to use different aircraft models. Being primarily developed on
+UNIX type systems, a modular approach is taken towards the
+aircraft modeling. To date, most alternatatives to the default 
+Cessna 172 aircraft are the product of research institutions
+interested in the flight characteristics and not cosmetics.
+The result of this was that one could fly the X-15 or a Boeing 747
+but be limited to C172 instrumentation.
+
+A rewrite of the panel display code was done around v0.7.5 by 
+developer David Megginson allowing for configuration of the panel
+via XML to address this limitation.
+
+The Basics:
+
+David Megginson wrote:
+
+> To get started, here's a basic, mostly-architectural outline:
+>
+> 1. All configuration files are XML-encoded property lists.  The root
+> element is always named <PropertyList>.  None of the properties is
+> mixed in with the main FlightGear properties (they're all separate
+> lists).
+>
+> 2. There is a single, top-level configuration file for each panel.
+> There is also a top-level configuration file for each instrument (I
+> may also add configuration files for cropped textures, to enabled
+> better reuse of common textures like needles and knobs).
+>
+> 3. A panel is composed of a background texture and zero or more
+> instruments.  The panel sets the position of each instrument and may
+> also override the instrument's preferred size (the default panel does
+> not do so, but if you want an altimeter covering a quarter of the
+> screen, go for it!).
+>
+> 4. An instrument consists of a preferred width and height, one or more
+> stacked layers, and zero or more actions.  It is defined in a separate
+> file.
+>
+> 5. A layer can be a texture (with alpha areas so that lower textures
+> show through), text (static, generated, or both), or a switch between
+> two other layers based on a boolean property.  Each layer contains
+> zero or more transformations.  
+>
+> NOTE: There is one built-in layer -- for the mag compass ribbon --
+> and all other layers are defined in the XML files.  In the future,
+> there may also be built-in layers for special things like a
+> weather-radar display or a GPS (though the GPS could be handled with
+> text properties).
+>
+> 6. A transformation is a rotation, an x-shift, or a y-shift.
+> Transformations can be static (rotate 90 degrees) or they can be based
+> on properties (rotate the number of degrees equal to the airspeed
+> times something plus something else, etc.).
+>
+> 7. An action is a hotspot on an instrument where something will happen
+> when the user clicks the left or centre mouse button.  Actions are
+> always tied to properties: they can toggle a boolean property, adjust
+> the value of a numeric property, or swap the values of two properties.
+>
+> 8. You can find panel configuration files under $FG_ROOT/Panels/ and
+> instrument configuration files under $FG_ROOT/Instruments/.
+>
+> 9. If there are *any* XML parsing errors, the panel will fail to load
+> (them's the XML rules), so it's worth downloading a parser like Expat
+> (http://www.jclark.com/xml/) so that you can check your XML.
+> FlightGear will print the location of errors, but the messages are a
+> little cryptic right now.
+>
+> 10. You can set the relative location of the top-level XML panel file
+> (under $FG_ROOT) using the "/sim/panel" property.  The default is
+> $FG_ROOT/Panels/Default/default.xml.
+
+To do:
+
+Add some examples.
+Integrate additonal questions and answers from the list.