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Please note: This page was retired in March 2011.

You can find current information from the links below

Publisher

• Catalyst Development Corporation (23)

Categories

• Internet Communication (318)

If you need to buy a license for this specific version, please contact us for availability and pricing.

Other information on this page is shown for historical reference only and may have changed considerably since.

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What's new in SocketTools Scripting Edition V6.0 SP3?

SocketTools 6.0 Service Pack 3 (SP3) has been released which includes updates for all of the components, documentation and examples.

What's new in SocketTools Scripting Edition V6.0?

SocketTools Scripting Edition 6.0 has been released and offers developers exciting new features, improved performance and full compatibility with the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems. The version 6.0 components are compatible with version 4.0 and 5.0 and support side-by-side deployment, simplifying the upgrade process so that you can spend your time improving your software, not rewriting it.

Features in the SocketTools Scripting Edition:

• Standard COM based components compatible with virtually any scripting language
• Optimized for server-side scripting in Active Server Pages (ASP) and PHP
• Full support for client scripting in Internet Explorer using VBScript and JScript
• Low resource utilization and no external dependencies on third-party libraries
• A comprehensive product with 18 components for all of the major protocols
• Fully compatible with Visual Studio.NET, including Visual Basic.NET and C#
• Includes both high level and lower level interfaces for maximum flexibility
• Thread-safe implementation with full support for multithreaded applications
• Support for proxy servers, including secure proxies, using FTP and HTTP
• An extensive Developer's Guide and online Technical Reference

The following protocols are supported by the SocketTools Scripting Edition:

• Domain Name Services (DNS)
• File Encoding and Compression
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
• Finger Protocol
• Gopher Protocol
• Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
• Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)
• Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
• Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)
• Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)
• Post Office Protocol (POP)
• Remote Access Services (RAS)
• Remote Command Protocol (RCP)
• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
• Telnet Protocol
• Time Protocol
• Whois Protocol
• Windows Sockets

The SocketTools Scripting Edition consists of scripting components based on the Component Object Model (COM) standard. These components are primarily designed for use with scripting languages such as VBScript and JavaScript, and have an interface that is similar to the ActiveX controls in the Visual Edition. They’re most commonly used with Active Server Pages (ASP) and other server-side scripting host environments like PHP. However, they are not limited strictly to scripting languages. They can also be used with Visual Basic and Visual C++, as well as any other programming language that supports the use of COM objects.

The advantage of the Scripting Edition is a simpler, high-level interface without the inherent overhead of full ActiveX controls. Like the libraries in the Library Edition, the scripting components can be used in a wide variety of languages. They have lower resource utilization than controls, and have significant performance benefits when used in a multithreaded environment, such as server-side scripts running on a webserver. However, the components do impose some additional processing overhead that standard DLLs don’t have, and because they must be registered with the operating system when they’re installed, it can make redistribution more complex. They can also be more complex to use with those languages that don’t provide extensive support for COM and variant data types.

The Scripting Edition is best suited for:

• Scripting languages such as VBScript and JavaScript
• High-level languages which support the use of COM objects
• Server-side scripting host environments such as ASP and PHP
• Client-side scripting in dynamic web pages (DHTML)
• Standalone “applets” which do not have a significant user interface
• Simplified application development and testing
• Developers who prefer a higher-level programming interface

Programming languages that are most commonly used with the Scripting Edition:

• JavaScript
• VBScript
• Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)

For other languages, the scripting components are the best choice if the language supports the Component Object Model (COM) standard and it is more suited to referencing COM objects rather than using ActiveX controls. The scripting components are also recommended for Visual Basic.NET and Visual C#.NET if the component is going to be used in a background worker thread instead of the main user interface thread.