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Original Article Date: March 19, 2004
Another component of Engineering Links (E-Links)is something called the UstnForm protocol. This specialized keyin allows web-page developers to extend the functionality of the FORM HTML-Tag to drive MicroStation from a web-page.
Note: Knowledge about the ustnkeyin protocol would be most helpful. Please refer to Engineering Links #3 - UstnKeyin protocol . The ustnform protocol allows form data to be used to generate parameters to MicroStation key-ins, macros, and MDL applications. In effect, Engineering Links provides its own algorithm for processing form data. This algorithm is invoked when an HTML form is submitted with the action:
The form data, which consists of a list of NAME/VALUE pairs, is then parsed to extract whatever key-ins, macros, and parameters were encoded. Here are few examples of using the USTNFORM protocol to provide additional options to standard MicroStation keyins. The following are examples of using the ustnform protocol and can be experienced in any MicroStation design file. Open any design file and connect to the browser from within MicroStation. V7 select Utilities > MicroStation Link V8 select Utilities > Connect Web Browser Then load this page in the browser. When ready, select a command, and poke on the submit button...then watch what happens inside of your file.
To further understand what's going on behind the scenes, the HTML code used in the above example is as follows:
In the above example, notice the use of the ustnkeyin protocol.
AskInga Article #189