Visiting France, Wife is Moroccan, Husband British!

Ok. I've spend a day searching, read many conflicting things on this forum and elsewhere, phone calls to different people. French Embassy UK (TLSconnect), tried the French embassy in Morocco and my limited French didn't help.

Basicly..

I am British I live in Morocco with my Wife, She is Moroccan with Morocco Passport.

We want to visit France for about 2-2.5 months.

We plan to stay with my wifes sister and husband both French.

After our stay in France we will travel to Australia where we have a visa arranged for a 1 year visit.

What documents doe's my wife need to take to the French Embassy in Morocco to get a schengen visa to enter France?

So far I've found we need;

1. Her Passport
2. Passport Photographs
3. A document from her sister in france showing they have a house where we will stay
4. My UK Passport

Because we are not 100% exactly the time we will travel to France do we need to buy airline tickets before applying for visa? Like if we are accepted for a 3 or 6 month visa, we will travel within the dates specified on visa through nothing right this second is confirmed travel dates. But once the visa is approved its likely we will be there within 2 weeks.

Edit: we do plan to travel to france at the end of June/Early July. and on to Australia 2 months after that.

And also as we are travelling to Australia from France after our time in France do I need to buy 2 tickets to Australia before applying for the French Visa to show we are exiting at a certain time?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you

you have to show your itinerary intended dates of travel and leave the schengen zone .
once you are in schengen zone you can travel any country with a valid visa . like if you get visa for france and after 2 months you going to austria you will be fine or you can visit any other schengen country if you wish its not a problem.