A Generic frame work for writing static macros in Java to
generate elaborate boilerplate in HTML text files on the
desktop without requiring any server side coding.  It could
also be used to expand macros in any text files.
The basic idea is this. You embed magic comments in your
HTML that look like something like this:
<!-- macro Measure 20 cm -->
Then you run htmlmacros.exe and it expands those comments to
boilerplate that looks like this:
<!-- macro JDisplay Measure 20 cm -->
<!-- generated -->
<span class="metric">20 cm</span>
<span class="imperial">(7.87 in)</span>
<!-- /generated by Measure -->
and renders for your viewers like this:
20 cm (7.87 in)
For more detail, read the manual posted at
http://mindprod.com/application/htmlmacrosmanual.html
Some of the 100 odd Macros that already exist include:
Age                   Calculate Age of something in years/months/days
AllPosters            affiliate link to AllPosters.com
Amazon                link to non-book product at Amazon
Art                   link to art.com poster
Audio                 link to audio file
BestBrowsers          describe recommended browsers
Book                  links to sell a book at various bookstores
CurrCon               show currency in multiple countries
DailySpecial          random link to take a change page on the website changed daily.
Degrees               show both Fahrenheit/Celsius
Dim                   metric/English width x height
DVD                   link to DVD stores
FileSize              insert the current size of a local file
Foot                  footer with google and public service ads.
Head                  generic header, there are also many special purpose variants.
Image                 display an png, jpg, gif
Include               include boilerplate, possibly containing embedded macros
J2EE                  macro: link to Sun's J2EE docs
JDisplay              display pretty colourised code listing
JDK                   refer to the current JDK
JRE                   refer to the current JRE
KJV                   link to verses in the KJV bible
Link                  smart href with webroot-relative link. Independent of where it is.  Used in Includes instead of href.
LL                    generate a entry for one person in the living love database
Macro                 Interface that all macros implement
MailTo                munged link to email
Measure               display in both metric and imperial units
MenuItem              menu item
Moved                 generate a stub to redirect to a document that has moved
NeedJava              why Java needed
NeedJWS               why Java Web Start Needed
Newsgroup             link to a newsgroup
NoJava                display if Java missing
OSes                  generate a list of OSes
PayPal                generate encrypted link to PayPal
Photo                 link to photo not displayed, with clickable camera icon.
Quilt                 generate an n x m list of links
QuiltPair             generate an n x m list of cell pairs
Quotation             random quote of the day
Reunion               generates entry for one person coming to a reunion.
Revised               generates date last revised
RFC                   link to RFC
RSS                   RSS feed item
RSSBegin              beginning of a group of RSS feed items to sort and group by day.
RSSEnd                beginning of a group of RSS feed times to sort and group by day.
Sun                   links to Sun site/bundled documentation
SunBug                link to Sun bug report
SunJDKandJREVersions  constants for various Sun JRE and JDK current and previous versions
SunJDKFile            ref to file in JDK
SunJREFile            ref to file in JRE
SunRFE                link to Sun RFE (Request For Enhancement)
Video                 Generates link to video file.
WebRing               generates navbar link to WebRing
Why Use HTML Static Macros
1.  You don't need to run any code on the server, just a vanilla HTML
server.  This means you can host an elaborate website on a free or almost
free server.
2.  You can run a arbibtrarily large website on a server with just tiny
amount of RAM.
3.  It means your website in unusually responsive since all pages are
prepared ahead of time before you upload.
4.  Using the Replicator, your clients can maintain a local copy of your
website they can access rapidly without requiring any sort of local
server, just a browser.
5.  It is easy to rapidly validate your HTML, spelling, links, and global
changes using ordinary HTML tools that work with your local disk copies.
Why Not Use HTML Static Macros
1. With static macros, your website cannot interact with the user via servlets.  You must use Java Applets or Java Web Start.
2. The cost of JSP hosting has dropped drastically.
3. Very few people are using this approach.