Creator Server is a tool that connects the functionality of the Creator Core Engine with external client modules. It is important to note that end users do not interact with Creator Server directly; they do so only through the intermediary of some client module. Creator Server itself provides the ad-creation and modification services; the client modules provide the User Interface.
The primary services provided by Server itself are those used by the MultiAd Creator desktop application, mainly ad construction, manipulation, and exporting to a variety of formats. Virtually anything that can be done to a document in the desktop application can be done in an automated fashion using Creator Server.
In addition, Creator Server provides a powerful command language similar in function to AppleScript® (and available on multiple platforms), support for multiple simultaneous users, and TCP/IP networking support for use on a local area network or the Internet. It also provides a few tools useful in an automated environment, such as conversion of images from one type to another (EPS to GIF, for example).
What Creator Server does not provide is any form of user interface more sophisticated than a command line. It is merely a processing tool, one half of a complete solution. The other half (the user interaction) is provided by a client module.
Example:
A restaurant is a good metaphor for this: The cooks in the kitchen are the server; they provide the primary service of the restaurant. Client modules are the waiters or waitresses who interact with the customers, taking orders and delivering the food. A person unfamiliar with the operation of a restaurant might well be unaware of the existence of the cooks at all, and assume the wait staff are performing all the work. What the user sees when interacting with a Creator Server based system is the particular client module they are using, not the server itself.
This separation between the server itself and the client modules is what gives Creator Server its incredible flexibility.
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