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A.Lazebny. Mysteries of Autodesk's Caves

Part 11. How digger Supermax and sorcerer Andrejus decided to join efforts
for creation of an unknown thing and what the result was

Some sorcerers use pentagrams for their charms, others prefer big boilers in that they see the world and cook medley. Many use mirrors, somebody draws unpleasant pictures om themself. But nevertheless all the sorcerers from time to time need their magic interface. Each interface has its own advantages and its disadvantages.
Modal interface is a tool when you should do nothing apart from working with it. You are not permitted to touch entities, to enter incantations. Until you destroy it you must use only interface elements.
Modeless interface is a better tool for you can hang it in the corner and calmly practise sorcery or fry eggs.

Interfaces are being created by sorcerers and shamans who fill them with cabbalistic signs in the form of buttons or windows for viewing happening. There are special magic languages. AutoLISP language is appended with a specific DCL language creating only modal interfaces. This language is certainly outdated. Intefaces made with it are very poor compared with the achievements of modern sorcerer's mastery. A group of sorcerers independent from Autodesk has invented its own system ObjectDCL that significantly exceeds DCL. But pride of Autodesk sorcerers up to now prevents it from acquiring vast and stable distribution.

But it's not the main thing. There are many magic languages applied for writing interfaces. The most famous and widely used one is HTML. This interface possess incredibly huge facilities, it is such an interface that can be granted on lease from one sorcerer to another. For pecuniary reward surely.

Number of incantations that require use of interface cannot be calculated. No one sorcerer will not produce so much for the whole life, but for conjuring he often needs something for facilitation of the work.

So there was born an idea to use HTML interface for AutoLISP language. At the beginning I supposed to do it for myself and not to lease it anybody but then changed my mind when one day my wife again demanded big sum for money contingencies.

I was unable to overcome this and decided to find sorcerers with more experience. I started with searching an appropriate sorcerer at the well-known institution DWG.RU but found nobody. After that I screw up my courage and had a look at the place that mere mortal people do not attend: Grey forum. After some activity I found two sorcerers: wisgest and The gray Cardinal. They solved my problem without leaving their beer mugs. More exactly, wisgest solved and The gray Cardinal improves the solution. Here it is.

Further I did not find understanding with The gray Cardinal and on hands and knees (I was unable to go at that time) I passed to a more calm place - www.midoma.ru, where wisgest helped me to close my trouble. Afterwards wisgest disappeared. Up to now I have no news from him. He is likely to perish in some witchcraft. I am very short of him!

The problem was solved but what about interface itself? One thing is knowing how to do but other one is realization on basis of this knowledge. And here fortune brought me together with a sorcerer Andrejus. I needed a promoter and such a man found - Anatoly, admin of modoma.ru. He became a customer and a financier for creation of the first specimen of webmacro (I gave this name to my invention).

So the job was launched. Andrejus was working on HTML, and I was cooking with AutoLISP. In a couple of months we gave birth to this masterpiece that is known to very few people and the born link is not fully estimated.


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