Automation is a term used to describe the ability of one application to control or access data from another. Automation is a common feature in many Microsoft applications such as Word and Excel. In fact, the macros in each of these applications are written using automation. The automation interface in these applications gives the user access to a range of objects that can be used to control the application and its data. For example, Microsoft Word contains paragraph, word and font objects. In a similar way, Maxsurf’s automation interface contains surface, control point and marker objects.
Maxsurf provides support for automation via an interface that allows the user to create, modify and analyse a design. While the Maxsurf application does not incorporate a facility for writing or recording macros directly, the automation interface will allow users to develop macros for Maxsurf from other applications. Maxsurf’s automation interface enables it to interact with many other applications that support automation. This is very easily achieved in applications that provide a suitable VBA macro-programming environment such as
· Microsoft Excel
· Microsoft Word
· Microsoft Access
· AutoCAD 2000 and later
Automation can also be used via many programming languages such as Visual Basic, Visual C++, Java and Compaq Visual Fortran. It is also supported by the Windows Scripting Host, which can be used to automate applications directly from the Windows environment.
For the technically inclined…
The core technology behind Maxsurf Automation is COM, Microsoft’s Common Object Model. If you are familiar with COM you can use Maxsurf’s COM interface as you would the COM interface of any other program. It can be accessed using VB, C++, C, Java or any other COM compatible language.
In this section:
· VBA
· Speed