SocketTools 7.2 Library Edition

Welcome

The SocketTools Library Edition is a collection of standard Windows dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that make it easy to add Internet functionality to your programs. You can upload and download files, send e-mail messages, retrieve and manage your e-mail messages, execute remote commands on a server, access web services and much more. SocketTools includes both 32-bit and 64-bit libraries, provides support for standard and secure connections, and does not have any dependencies on third-party libraries. With over twenty libraries and 900 functions, SocketTools is designed to meet the needs of virtually any kind of Internet software development.

This edition of SocketTools can be used by any programming language that supports calling functions exported from a standard DLL. It includes header files and import libraries for C/C++, with support for Visual C++ 6.0 and later versions. Also included are function declarations for other languages such as Visual Basic, Delphi and PowerBASIC. If your favorite language can call functions in the Windows API, you can use SocketTools. We've designed our API so that most functions use scalar types and simple structures, making it easy to work with, regardless of what language and development tools are being used.

We think you'll find SocketTools to be a powerful toolkit that will help you create better software, faster and easier than you ever imagined.

What's New

SocketTools 7 includes many new and improved features, as well as some changes to the product that many developers have been asking for. The most significant changes to the product are:

Support for native 32-bit and 64-bit development on Windows XP and later platforms
Support for both IPv4 and IPv6 network connections
Support for secure connections using SSL/TLS and SSH in a single edition
Added support for creating secure connections using TLS version 1.1 and 1.2
A new News Feed API that allows your application to read syndicated news feeds (RSS)
A new Text Messaging API that makes it easy to send SMS text messages

We've also made many improvements to the existing APIs in SocketTools with a focus on simplifying many common tasks. For example, we've changed many functions in FTP and HTTP APIs so that they can transparently handle URLs rather than requiring the application to parse them. Extended versions of functions have been added to support files that are larger than 4GB in size. And even with all of these improvements, we've made sure to maintain backwards compatibility as much as possible. Developers who are using earlier versions of SocketTools will find upgrading to the current version to be a simple process, and in some cases requires little more than recompiling their application.

Getting Started

The documentation for SocketTools is extensive, and we suggest that you start by reading the following sections. If you're new to network programming in general, we also have a General Concepts section in the Developer's Guide that can help you understand the difference between network and application protocols, what domain names are, the client/server model and how handles are used by the API.

If you're using a programming language other than C/C++, the section on Language Support will provide information about how the APIs can used with different types of languages, the common data types and general requirements. The Library Overview provides a summary of what each of the SocketTools libraries can be used for, along with how to get started working with the API. We've designed the SocketTools APIs and C++ classes to share similar interfaces, minimizing the learning curve as much as possible. If you're comfortable working with the Windows API and/or the standard classes in MFC, you'll find SocketTools very easy to use.

Help & Support

If you have questions about how to use SocketTools or want to know how to solve a particular problem, there are online resources and technical support available to both customers and evaluators. The first thing that we always recommend is checking the online Knowledge Base at our website. This contains hundreds of articles that answer many of the most common questions that developers have about using SocketTools.

There is also a complete set of online documentation available on our website that is similar to this help file. However, the online documentation may contain updated information for the most recent release of the software. If you can't find an answer to your question online, then submit a technical support request and one of our developers will be happy to help you. We pride ourselves on our support and will do everything we can to answer your questions and resolve any problems as quickly as possible.